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    Bed Rock
    Bed Rock
    Bed Rock
    Ebook25 pages25 minutes

    Bed Rock

    By Bernard Fancher

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    excerpt:

    She would come by once or twice a week to look in on him, though he was nothing to her but a neighbor. Yesterday, her excuse for doing so amounted to no more than the fact she’d just, an hour before, baked up a big batch of cookies. She and Kevin would never eat them all, or at least they shouldn’t, she said; handing over a paper bag tied up with a big blue ribbon bow, she added, to quell any remaining objection, he’d be doing her a favor by accepting the cookies, removing the temptation. Back inside the house, opening the bag, he’d marveled at the treasure of a dozen saucer-size sugar molasses cookies, each one individually wrapped in a square of cellophane pulled smooth across the top and folded neatly together under the bottom. As he turned over and removed the cellophane wrap from one of the cookies, using the same slow age-worn deliberation and care with which he had untied the paper bag’s ribbon the day before, Elgin again wondered why he couldn’t have found at some point, for his own, someone like this neighbor gal Anne. He told himself if he were half a century younger and she were still looking, he’d be all after her—and factually, he’d said as much—directly to her—more than once. But it had gotten to be such an old and familiar joke she no longer even blushed. Instead, she’d learned to just laugh the words off, fluttering her eyes towards the heavens while sighing, “Oh Elgin, if only...”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBernard Fancher
    Release dateApr 18, 2011
    ISBN9781458110138
    Bed Rock
    Author

    Bernard Fancher

    I live on a small and mostly defunct farm in western New York, where the events of a typical day include writing and walking my dogs--items not necessarily listed in order of priority. (At least not from the dogs' point of view.)

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      Book preview

      Bed Rock - Bernard Fancher

      Bed Rock

      by

      Bernard Fancher

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 Bernard Fancher

      All Rights Reserved

      Smashwords License Statement:

      This ebook is licensed by Smashwords, and may not otherwise be reproduced or disseminated without the author’s permission.

      Disclaimer:

      The story that follows is fiction. Except where clearly historical, the people, places, and events portrayed are works of the imagination.

      ***********

      Bed Rock

      Elgin Brick held onto the edge of the thick maple countertop, steadying himself so as not to fall down. When the spell passed, he reopened his eyes to find an altered and possibly renewed but definitely blurred vision. It seemed as though his eyes were covered by a watery scale or thin cataract, and at first he thought the steam rising off the percolator accounted for this sudden change in outlook. Determined to see past the misty impediment, he concentrated on the world beyond, attempting to focus his gaze on the approximate center of the front yard. Long ago he had decided to dislike and not to look through the new left pane of the window, broken over half a century ago during a rowdy game of catch with his brother. But the right pane, still comprised of the original bubble-specked wavy glass, only magnified the defect in his eyes, and he blinked once, and then again, tilting his head while simultaneously shifting his weight, moving a little to the left and setting himself more firmly in place; doing so, he grudgingly allowed the new glass to clear a path for his vision. Instantly able again to see clearly, he focused on one of the many flecks of verdigris covering the trunk of the old oak tree in the center of the front yard. Soon enough, he considered as well the long frayed ropes converging from a high branch to the weathered board swing; looking more generally about, casting his eyes now down rather then up, he also took note of the many red and yellow leaves, blown off in the night, lying sodden and pressed flat

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