Who is Ellery James?

Who is Ellery James?

Welcome to my blog of short stories.  This is a more formal introduction to myself, rather than the disclaimer I have at the beginning.  While I have written stories for many years, this is the first time I have given the public a look at my work.  Please feel free to comment and be critical about the work, it makes me a better writer and my stories a fuller sense of completion.

As like my writers, my work is never done.  I will post as many stories as I can, plus there is a larger number in the works, though that is a ways off.

Hope you enjoy my works as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Always,
Ellery James

Ring...Ring....Ring

Ring…Ring…Ring

            “Hello,” Danny jumped on the seat in the phone booth that stood in the corner of his living room.  When his parents bought the place, the realtor told them that before they signed the deed, they would need to agree to never remove the phone booth.  It seemed strange, but they saw nothing wrong with the request.

“Hello,” Danny repeated himself, “this is the Reese residents.  Mommy it’s for you.”  She grabbed the phone and watched as he placed himself in front of the television to watch The Muppet Show.

“Hello,” she listened for an answer.  There was no one there. 

…

            Margret grabbed the rotary phone by the chord and yanked it from the holding place on the wall.  “Hello,” her voice skipped with excitement, “this is the Goodwin family.” Running over to her father who was watching Baywatch, she handed him the receiver.  After a few seconds of silence he handed it back.  She clambered onto the seat to put the phone back in its position.  Clang.  It began to ring again.

…

            “Mom, why is it that there is never anyone on the other end of that old phone when I answer it?”  Mark shuffled a large piece of apple cobbler around his plate.  The question had perplexed him since they moved into the house two weeks ago.

            “It’s old,” she took a bite of cobbler, “the speaker in the phone is probably dead.”  Some of the crumbs spurted from her mouth and speckled the tablecloth.  “Now eat your cobbler.”

            “But Billy says he can hear the people on the other end.” Mark could hear his brother in the other room watching cartoons and laughing each time the Animaniacs would break out of their water tower.  Since Mark entered high school, he would poke fun at the show, even though it was once his favorite.

            “He’s only a baby, probably is just hearing himself talk.”  She shoveled another bite of cobbler into her mouth.

…

            When moved into our new home.  It was a beautiful two story Colonial with white shutters, a red door, and a long steep driveway.  The realtor knew that my wife would fall in love with the place instantly.  I was suspicious.  It had been built in the fifties, and three families had occupied it before us.  There was some work to do in the bedrooms and the carpets were ugly shades of green, red, and yellow.  My biggest complaint about the house was the phone booth that stood in the living room.  The frame was build of stained oak, and the glass doors caught my son’s fingers in it while he tried to climb down from answering the old rotary phone.

            “This is perfect.”  My wife squealed.

            “What about the phone booth in our living room?”  I knew there was no use arguing.  She had her mind set on the house and could already see our grandkids playing in the back yard.

            “It add a nice touch, and Noah seems to like it.”  His little mouth moved a million miles an hour as he talked on the phone.

            Occasionally the old rotary phone will come to life and ring.  My son has designated himself the official phone answerer.  As the football game runs on the television, I can hear him talking with someone.  When I ask to talk to the person, he willingly gives me the phone, but there is no one there.

Mr. Hahn's Lawn

Mr. Hahn’s Lawn

            Nothing could grow in our town—until Mr. Hahn arrived.  In our little town of Sinvida, New Mexico the lawns were mostly rocks and dry dirt that swirled from the winds during the summer.  The calluses on our feet were as thick as the soles of shoes.  The road was paved, yet you would not know from the dust that settled over it.  Mamá would go outside in the mornings to sweep the walkway with her besom broom, only to be driven inside by a dust storm.

“Rápido, rápido,” Rico would shout as she rushed back inside, cursing God for sending another sand storm. There was dessert for miles, and the well often dried up and left us parched with thirst.  The chickens were even laying eggs without shells.  It was my job to retrieve these eggs before they left more of their stench on the town.

            “He be a damned fool,” Mamá said, the day Mr. Hahn came into town with a pickup truck full of sod and manure.  His face was worn from the sun, which was protected very little from the straw hat tipped on his head.  His overalls were cuffed up to reveal a pair of canvas shoes that were probably once white, but now held the brown shade of dirt.  The children gathered as he spread the manure across the wasteland, one shovel at a time, carefully covering his dust.

“Looks beautiful,” he said before hunkering down in his dilapidated little adobe that had probably been made with the same type of manure that he now spread across his land.

The next morning he took the sod from his truck and rolled it out in perfectly straight rows, leaving a foot around the house and on either side of the path.  Again the children of the town came to watch the summer sun beat down on him.  Eventually the women came out and sat near their adobe, cooling themselves with homemade fans of paper or cardboard.

When the sun began to set, he stood at the edge of his lawn and said, “Looks beautiful.”

The next day, Mr. Hahn’s pickup truck was missing.  Everyone in the town stared at the green, tickling grass with envy.  A few small children dared each other to touch it.

“You go,” they would say before pushing each other closer. 

“No, you do it.”  It had become a game until Rico walked straight through the horde of children and placed a soiled hand on the grass.  There was a hush.  I could hear the whispers from the children.  After that everyone came to touch the green grass, even Mamá.

“¡Dios mío!” They all whispered as the grass spread between their fingers. I watched as tears trickled down Mama’s face and washed away some of the dust on her face to reveal a smooth silk.  After everyone had their fill of grass, they sat and waited for Mr. Hahn’s return.

That night he came with bright red, yellow, orange, pink, and purple flowers.  We watched as he set out the flowers in their places.  Careful not to place the same colors next to each other, he worked under the haze of the moon.  I stared out my window and watched, as he’d set a flower down, then take a step back before moving it to a different location.  The constant assessment of positioning took until the sun rose.  As the first rooster crowed, he stepped back to the street.

Wiping his forearm across his brow to reveal a tuft of white hair, he whispered, “Looks beautiful.”

 He shuffled back into his adobe.  The bright colors of the flowers began to slowly sparkle under the sunlight.  As people woke, they made their way to Mr. Hahn’s lawn.  Their hushed voices were not necessary, even the deaf could understand what they were saying.  Eyes darted from flower to flower, examining the beauty and strength they had. 

Mamá was the first to step onto the grass.  I had not seen her bend down for anything since she had Rico, but there she was, hunched over a bouquet of flowers.  Her fingers dug into the moist dirt.  They all gazed as she created a small hole in the ground and carefully placed a tiny pink flower in it.  Then, with precision, she mounded the dirt around it.  As soon as she finished the first flower, Rico was next to her with hands in the dirt.  They sent some of the children to the well for water to shower over the freshly planted flowers.  With the entire town of thirty people helping, it took us until lunch to plant the delicate flowers and nourish them with our precious water.  We all stood back, bare feet in the grass, to examine our work.

“Looks beautiful.” Mr. Hahn was standing in the doorway of his adobe with his hat in hand, white hair sticking out in all directions, and a grin on his face.  He was right our town looked beautiful.

Short Stories

I have always been fascinated with writing and now I wish to share a few short stories with everyone.  Please note that these are my personal stories and thus they are not to be copied or plagiarized in anyway.  Please enjoy all of these stories, since they are like individual people and no to are alike.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.