from Before the Millennium
“The bones here are the memories of life as art. Living is a creation, kid. You can participate in it or you can let it happen without you. Myself, I prefer to have a strong hand in it so the imprints on my bones will stand out in any collage.” −from Bones Wanted
These stories from before the millennium are about the everlasting state of the world and how to make it a better-lasting place. They have a common thread, though they come in a variety of styles. Whether fable, street theater, therapy session, or generational dust-up, they involve transformations of consciousness assisted by encountering magic words.
“Delightful, witty, funny, and wise, the contemporary environmental fables and reflective tales in The Magic Word make us laugh while also causing us to think about our own ways of responding to challenges in the world as it is.” −Anthony O. Tyler, editor of The Blueline Anthology
In addition to the front cover, Nashville artist Jammie Williams has created titillating interior illustrations to accompany each story. You can see some of Williams’ artwork at http://jammiewilliams.com/
Please click contact me to get a hard copy of The Magic Word and Other Stories or a great twofer discount with any of my other works.
Of course, hard copy and ebook versions of The Magic Word and Other Stories can be ordered through the publisher at http://booklocker.com/books/6619.html, or through your favorite online or neighborhood booksellers.
BOOKLOCKER:
http://booklocker.com/books/6619.html
AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B1K0PQM
BARNES & NOBLE:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-magic-word-and-other-stories-from-before-the-millennium-about-the-way-things-are-today-jj-john-jeffry-stein/1113984681?ean=2940016001043
ITUNES:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/magic-word-other-stories-from/id594011839
Here are first paragraph preview excerpts from some of the stories to give you a taste:
From The Magic Word:
I went on this amazing trip. It was like a field trip or something, only I was from out of this world. There was a group of others with me, Freddy and Joey, and Alsey with her braces and rubber bands, and many more that I never saw clearly. Up front with the driver was Miss Fluharty, my fifth grade teacher. Boy, I don’t know where she came from because I haven’t thought about her in years.
You might be thinking we were on some kind of bus and maybe it was. Except it must have been an intergalactic model with an invisible shell, for anywhere I looked I could see for miles. It didn’t have any wheels, either, that’s for sure, because we were shooting through space at warp speed.
Then Miss Fluharty spoke. I always remember her as stern and frowning with a voice like a slapping ruler, but she wasn’t that way now. Here she was sort of sexy and smiling, thirty years younger and twenty pounds lighter. Maybe I was back in her very first class this time around, rather than getting her after she had aged with too many eons of the likes of me.
“Look there on the horizon,” she said. “That skyline. That’s The World Center Center. It’s got the tallest, smuggest buildings on earth. We’ll be there in a jiffy. It should be quite an experience. You see, this is the most important place in the world. It’s where the Players are, the Real Players, you understand. This is where the decisions get made. Everything that’s anything happens here.”
From Oreh’s Great Fall:
Oreh lived on a cloud. It was soft and fluffy and offered everything he could ever want. It offered warmth of the sun, protection from storms below, and wonderful fresh water whenever he dipped his head down into the moisture for a drink. And the views—the views were spectacular. He could see the few mountain peaks still above the smog; the two stands of old growth forest that had not yet been cut; and the blue green of the oceans out in the middle where poison runoff, scum from dumping and red algae blooms had yet to choke out all the oxygen in the sea. Oh, yes, he could also see and shake his head at all the madness of humankind that spilled blood and stole soul and raced for money down below. He could see every bit of it and feel terrific that he was so far above it all.
From Alice in Wasteland:
“Okay, stop here,” the Headless Horseman said. He slipped into the greatcoat whose collar reached way above his head. “We’ve got one hour before the morning shift hits the road. Let’s move like banshees.”
The driver pulled off onto the shoulder. The two of them got out, climbed over the stake rails of the truck and began working on the tops of the front most drums with their tools. The Headless Horseman was the first to pry a lid loose. When he did, out popped a precious six year old girl dressed like Alice in Wonderland holding a flashlight.
“You okay, Alice?” he asked.
“Wow, was it ever scary in there when I turned off the light,” the little girl said. “So much noise, it sounded like I was in the stomach of a bear with a bellyache. Or that Jabberwocky thing or something. I loved it. I kept turning off the light until my skin was all goose bumps.”
“You’re a wonder, kid. Maddie sure has done a job on you.”
“You mean Dorothy, don’t you?”
“Right! Dorothy!” the man, who had to remember he was the Headless Horseman, corrected himself. “She’s sure bringing you up to have courage, kid. That’s something. She’s something. You’re really something!”
“Yeah,” the little girl said matter-of-factly as he lifted her out and down on top of a drum further back. From there she watched four more unlikely figures emerge from other rusty containers. “Oh, look!” she said, all excited. “It’s Mr. Toad, Mr. Mole, Mr. Rat, and…. and…. Who are you?” she asked the fourth one.
From To Be a Hero:
A man came to me asking for help. He said he had been a coward all his life and he wanted to be a hero. He said the goal of our sessions together would be that when we were done, he would be an indisputable hero. I asked if that meant he would be a better person. He said no, he was already a decent person, but that wasn’t enough. “Lots of good, decent people are cowards just like me,” he said.
From Disempowering Madness:
“I’m searching for some words,” a friend said to me at the end of the week. “I can’t quite find them, can’t quite get them right. It’s more than words, really, it’s a kind of magical utterance that once said will totally vanquish human insanities.”
“I see,” I answered, jokingly. “You want to put me out of work.”
“No! No! I’m not talking about things like schizophrenia or paranoia or neuroses. You can have them. I’m talking about the insanities of supposedly rational, mentally capable individuals. Things like xenophobia, racism, religious intolerance and all other forms of narcissism. Determined ignorance that leads to denial that leads to holocausts on the installment plan.”
“Narcissism and personality disorders are still within my purview, you know.”
“I know. And the demagogues and skinheads, terrorists and grand dragons of the KKK are just flocking to your door to get cured of their executional tendencies. How many of these exactly did you see last week?”
From Bones Wanted:
Karen was driving for many reasons. Most of all she wanted time. The motion of the car eastward was enough at the moment to satisfy the need to do something, anything. A plane would have gotten her body somewhere before her mind could figure out why. The car was taking her in the direction she knew she had to go, but it was more patient, easing her mind through the change in landscape and weather.
Even more, she knew the wheels were drawing her toward the preserve of her renegade grandmother, “La Bruja de Truchas,” who she hoped for some reason could give her answers that no other human being could. The pull seemed more supernatural than rational since she had not seen the heretic woman in twenty years. She had only been a child of five when Grandfather MacNeil had died before her eyes on the tennis court in the midst of screaming at Grandmother about missing a poached volley. He had hardly been laid in his grave when Grandmother scandalized Wickenburg by taking off to parts unknown with a young sculptor who had stayed less than a week at the tennis ranch.
