Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Life Knots
    Life Knots
    Life Knots
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Life Knots

    By Terry Hayman

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    From Greek slaves to grieving grocery shoppers, everyone has a life knot or two to struggle through. Join a man who meets a talking dog in a grocery aisle, a Montreal prostitute witnessing the possible murder of Harry Houdini, a painter committed to painting one neighborhood his whole life, and more. Contains “The Grocery Zoo Story”, “Observe, If You Will...”, “One Place”, “Never His Sword”, and “The Rock.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFiero Publishing
    Release dateMay 21, 2011
    ISBN9781458103505
    Life Knots
    Author

    Terry Hayman

    Raised in five different countries and currently living with his family in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Terry is a full-time writer and actor who accepts struggle, believes in goodness, and seeks truth always.

    Read more from Terry Hayman

    Related to Life Knots

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 7, 2020

      D-DAY for matriculants has come and gone. Nerves evidently started to kick in as some helplines were inundated with calls from distressed learners that same day. After reading about all the trials and the harshness life threw at some, I immediately t

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hair-raising Holidays

      Jul 31, 2022

      Hair-raising Holidays
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Eulogy For A Cow

      Nov 8, 2018

      Cull auctions sell animals who have been culled from the herd: those who have been deemed no longer productive or economically viable. Animals sold at cull auctions will typically either be transported directly to a slaughterhouse or be moved to a fe

      10 min read

    • Article

      A Eulogy For A Cow

      Nov 8, 2018

      Cull auctions sell animals who have been culled from the herd: those who have been deemed no longer productive or economically viable. Animals sold at cull auctions will typically either be transported directly to a slaughterhouse or be moved to a fe

      10 min read

    • Article

      Canine Cremains

      May 16, 2017

      Canine Cremains
      3 min read

    • Article

      Season Of Goodwill? (You Might Need It)

      Nov 8, 2023

      CHRISTMAS is on the way and those of us with parrots have a lot extra to decide in the way of activities, extra food, presents, guests and so on. My first two parrots, the African greys Artha and Casper, taught me far more than I taught them. Althoug

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2022

      First prize 10 and under Tang Li, age 9 Palmetto Bay, FL My name is Anisa. I was in Hawaii on vacation. I enjoyed sipping refreshing drinks, overlooking the turquoise ocean, and dancing with others, before I overheard that the priceless Fire Ring wa

      10 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Sorrow

      Aug 19, 2019

      Sweet Sorrow
      8 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2024

      I wake from a dreamin which I’m speaking coarselyto my daughter who has taken offher clothes in the middleschool parking lot and is washingher body in ritual preparationto go onto the internet and find outif the rumor she heard abouther favorite YouT

      3 min read

    • Article

      Lambs To The Laughter

      Feb 26, 2024

      Good news. The Lamb National is back on. What do you mean you have no idea what the Lamb National is? I suppose it is possible that not everyone is as obsessed with sheep as I am. If you are not, I suggest you take up sheep as an obsession as soon as

      3 min read

    • Article

      Closure

      Jan 20, 2020

      Closure
      8 min read

    • Article

      My Dog Saved My Life!

      Mar 9, 2020

      My Dog Saved My Life!
      4 min read

    • Article

      Walking On TheWild Side…

      Jul 17, 2023

      Walking On TheWild Side…
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Red-Tailed Hawk

      Apr 4, 2023

      The spring of 1954 in the mountains of East Tennessee brought forth a renewal of life. I was 12 years old and given the responsibility of watching over a brood of newly hatched chicks. They were very important to our family. Once grown, we could eat,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Paging Dr. Doolittle

      Aug 15, 2020

      Paging Dr. Doolittle
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Kind of Deep Companionship: The Millions Interviews Jo Ann Beard

      Jun 3, 2021

      When you’re slogging through your day, imagining what else is to come, and you remember that the minute all else is done you can sink down into your book like warm water, and be absorbed while you’re absorbing, is priceless, as they say in capitalism

      6 min read

    • Article

      My Beautiful Reward

      Oct 25, 2021

      My Beautiful Reward
      3 min read

    • Article

      Mountain Companions

      Sep 11, 2020

      Mountain Companions
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Brush With History

      Dec 12, 2019

      SITTING by a hedgerow last month, glugging down a variety of sworn-by secret recipes from hipflasks, conversation swayed to hunting inheritances. From cloak-and-dagger gin concoctions to inherited whips, then to furrier memorabilia in the shape of pa

      3 min read

    • Article

      Puppy Love

      Mar 19, 2021

      Puppy Love
      5 min read

    • Article

      Snake Whisperer

      Mar 19, 2024

      Snake Whisperer
      3 min read

    • Article

      Coyote Chess Match

      Aug 21, 2019

      Coyote Chess Match
      4 min read

    • Article

      Boots at Sixpence

      Feb 1, 2023

      Boots at Sixpence
      2 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Jun 2, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 267, you were invited to write a poem as a cat’s view of a famous (named) person. It proved a successful device. Jennifer Willis gave Mitsou’s view of Marilyn Monroe: ‘My mistress has big eyes of blue/But not so blue as mine./My mis

      2 min read

    • Article

      Benji’s Magic Boots

      May 8, 2019

      Benji’s Magic Boots
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Life Knots

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Life Knots - Terry Hayman

      LIFE KNOTS

      Terry Hayman

      Copyright © 2011 Terry Hayman

      Published by Fiero Publishing

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Author Foreword

      The Grocery Zoo Story

      Observe, If You Will...

      One Place

      Never His Sword

      The Rock

      afterword

      Sample of Chasing the Minotaur

      Author Foreword

      Ordinary people... Are there such things? For each person ultimately lives their life within their own skin, their own mind, and is therefore the central player in a drama in which they star, on a path uniquely theirs. And as they trudge or dance their way along it, some will become aware that they’ve become snagged with ropes that are dragging them somewhere they don’t necessarily want to go.

      Do they fight? Do they calmly try to slide out? Deftly untie the knots? Cut wildly about them to get free?

      How they tackle their ropes will make them heroes, clowns, villains, losers who despair, survivors who are reborn.

      That diversity of the human struggle is what I try to capture in my stories. Because everyone who’s trying to break free deserves to be heard. They whisper to me. They poke me. They scream for attention. So I write down what they say and do.

      So where did this batch of tales come from?

      The Grocery Zoo Story – It started with a love of dogs and a love of language. Hence the verbally proficient beast in this story. Sadly, people who believe in talking dogs often have problems of their own, and so I afflicted my poor narrator. Finally, of course, this encounter is a riff off a play I had the pleasure to perform in many years ago, Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story. (Wonderful little one-act that you should see if you ever get the opportunity.)

      Observe, If You Will – This came out of a love of a certain historical period and an interesting conflux of the lives of two famous people in Montreal, Canada, no less.

      One Place – It’s a story about a painter (you’ll see from my novel Chasing the Minotaur that I like such tales), and how certain arbitrary limits might actually lead to unique art.

      Never His Sword – This was written for an anthology of stories about famous swords through history, some real, some fantastical. The sword of this story is almost certainly apocryphal, but one of the funner things an author can do is take the apocryphal or epigrammatic story and give it real characters and emotions.

      The Rock – This is actually the first professional story I ever sold, but it continues to resonate with me, and, I hope, with others. A pretty basic tale of being pushed right to the edge and making a choice. Or not?

      And there we have the fabulous five. May they bring you some times of diversion, when you’re in another place entirely. May they excite and soothe, intrigue and provoke. May you come out the other end better for our time spent together.

      -Terry Hayman

      North Vancouver,BC

      May 21, 2011

      He’s been waiting for you.

      The Grocery Zoo Story

      Terry Hayman

      Copyright © 2011 Terry Hayman

      I had wrapped my happy into a jacket, laid it in the top basket of a pushcart, and wheeled it around a big city grocery store, when a dog greeted me in the pet food aisle. Hello, Sir. Help a lonely dog find a home?

      Not bloody likely, I said, stumbling and momentarily letting go of my pushcart.

      The dog, a big black Labrador retriever, laughed with a barfy smell. Ah, exhumation of the subconscious, you’re thinking. A phantasm of repressed urges, perhaps. Perhaps a simulacrum of past canines known and loved.

      Well...um.... No, that wasn’t precisely it. I was actually thinking the grapes I’d plucked to check for sweetness – they hadn’t been, sweet, that is – had been sprayed with LSD by some management aspirant who’d taken to heart the admonition about curbing free sampling in the produce section. After all, if a customer actually bought the produce, he or she would take them home and wash them or cook them. But if you sampled, you’d get the LSD, right? They do it all over.

      I assure you, Sir. I am not the stuff dreams are made of, said the dog. He raised his left paw and was about to put over his heart before he realized that would unbalance him. He put it down. "I am, rather, merely an extraordinary freak of nature, a creation of genetic engineering loosed

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1