Six Sixes by Joseph Grant

an Online Magazine from Six Sentences

Joseph Grant is one of 6S's most prolific writers, and the hits just keep on coming. 6S is proud to present Six Sixes by Joseph Grant, a collection of six original six-sentence pieces. To view the magazine, just click the blue “OPEN PUBLICATION” tab above. You’ll be taken inside, where you can turn the pages by clicking the arrows to the left and right. To view a “full screen” version of the document (which is recommended, and very cool), once inside, just click the little diagonal arrows above the document (located to the left of the little envelope). Enjoy!

6S

Six Sentences is more than five and less than seven.

Six Sixes by Joseph Grant

an Online Magazine from Six Sentences

Joseph Grant is one of 6S's favorite sons, and the hits just keep on coming. 6S is proud to present Another Six Sixes by Joseph Grant, a collection of six original six-sentence pieces. To view the magazine, just click the blue “OPEN PUBLICATION” tab above. You’ll be taken inside, where you can turn the pages by clicking the arrows to the left and right. To view a “full screen” version of the document, once inside, just click the little diagonal arrows above the document (located to the left of the little envelope). Enjoy!

6S

Six Sentences are all you need. (Unless you need more. Or less.)

Love Among the Ruins

by Joseph Grant

A discordant sigh was released towards the vaulted ceiling as the couple sat across from each other in their large living room on opposite ends of the plush couch, IM-ing the other from their laptops, occasionally texting about a witty romans a clef due out in the spring or some acerbic dialogue from a well-known political pundit, and, in that, the only conversation that was being conducted was in fact no conversation at all. The silence did not replace the fact that the music that had brought them together in the first place had faded into the dust, caged now by sunbeams, and it fell ever so lightly upon the prized, but never played piano keys, creating dissonant chords not readily apparent to their savage, tone-deaf breast, and while their song was for all outward appearances a pretty tune, their inner symphony had never progressed with the crest and fall of life's overtures. In their oeuvre, they dwelt between the living and the dead; he in pediatrics, she at the county morgue, and at the end of their dissimilar day, they ambled through courteous, trite melodies that had long ago replaced the ruins of a love song left unfinished. Only the clangor of the antique grandfather clock, back up against the wall, tolled and told of yet of another hour gone by, wasted in the cavalier, cadaver existence where many shadows passed but none ever stayed; he many times drunk out of sheer boredom, and she, still angry at him but oblivious to the life ebbing away at each hour's proclamation of: it's later than you think. Unbeknownst to them, as they sat beneath their holy trinity of Cezanne, Renoir and Pissarro, their house was not a museum, nor was it a even a home; rather, a home divided: two separate houses within one. They had filled their great room with many priceless possessions, tempered by self-indulgence as much as it was by languor, yet the echo still remained, brought about by the absence of love.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is a 6S All-Star and the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

From the Stoop

by Joseph Grant

From the stoop of my brownstone, the world passes me by and never stops and I sip a slightly warm beer in the sweet-scented, pleasant summer breeze that is only tenuously interrupted by the spices of other cultures mixed and melting in the pots of this mixed melting pot and I breathe a sigh of relief; for the City as it were, does not exist here, it is a distant memory of subway ride away. Tonight, Greenwich Village is a canvas alive with its showcase of artists, addicts and freaks and I sit among the growing blue shadows and watch the happy in-love couples as they walk by and think of you. My mind is taken back to the time, same time two years ago when I saw my future in your smiling eyes and I said hello and you kept walking but suddenly stopped. We walked the City that night and talked nearly until the sun rose and made love at dawn and you moved in with me not long after and we were happy for the longest time, but you felt the need to walk away from my door again and one day you were gone. The City changed for me then and with your leaving, the hidden ugliness became apparent, just like the smell of exhaust, urine, rotting garbage and now I notice the grit and the grime from the fireplaces that once seemed so romantic. Now loneliness sits with me on the stoop in place of you and the footsteps wander up and down my street all day and the winds grow colder now and the City is no longer the same wondrous place it once was since you stopped coming around my door.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is a 6S All-Star and the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

That Certain September

by Joseph Grant

I awoke as always when the alarm went off and began to get ready for my shift as an X-Ray Tech at Saint Vincent’s Hospital. As I was taking a shower, my wife told me about the first plane hitting the Trade Center and I muttered Oh, God and quickly rinsed and toweled off and got into my scrubs. On my way to the hospital, I was confused to see the smoke and debris from what appeared to be the other Tower, now inconceivably engulfed in flames as well and I remembered thinking to myself how it was going to be a rough day in the O.R., with an overwhelming number of casualties. As I reached the emergency room entrance, I came upon a great deal of commotion and I spotted our Chief of Staff, Dr. Grenadus, ordering what looked like an army of volunteers who were hurriedly carrying planks of wood in this direction and that. People from all walks of life and from seemingly every ethnic background, all working together, were hammering the planks together for makeshift stretchers for the injured that would surely flood our doors any given moment now. In one of the cruelest ironies of that dreadful day, the stretchers were abandoned, never to be used.

6S

Joseph Grant, author of A Far Away Place, is originally from New York City and currently resides in Los Angeles. His short stories have been published in over 40 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst. Upcoming pieces will soon be published in Literary Tonic. His work has also appeared in The New York Bar Guide (as a reviewer) and in various newspaper articles that have appeared in The Pasadena Star, Whittier News and the San Gabriel Tribune. "Indigo," a work of verse, was published by Alpha Beat Press, and he has recently completed his first novel.

El Dia de Los Muertos

by Joseph Grant

Lupita lay in bed, near death’s door or at least that’s where she thought she was as she coughed and suffered through her late October influenza and hoped for a sweat to break the fever, but the sweat was a long time in coming and all that morning while they buried her grandmother she thought about the possibility of never being well again. Her being sick was made worse by not being able to properly say goodbye to her beloved abuelita, a woman who had practically raised her from birth, had fed her sopa de pollo, posole or albondigas when she was not well and practically smothered her with love and affection when she was, but there lay Lupita, unable to honor the woman who, in many ways, meant more to her than her own mother. Dwelling in and out of consciousness, Lupita’s eyes settled on differing things in the room, such as her colorful Ojo de Dios that she made in class, the large wooden crucifix over her door or the portrait of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe next to the large bureau where she hid the diary that held her innermost secrets and thought of her dear grandmother until she fell asleep. During the following day she thought of her young life and how she would now always miss her precious grandmother and how long of a life there was to go without ever seeing her again and she wished she could see her grandmother again but this impossibility made her muy triste. In the late afternoon of the first of November, her family gathered their calaveras de azúcar and other favorite foods and beverages that her grandmother enjoyed during her lifetime and left to the cemetery miles away to prepare for El Dia de Los Muertos, a time-honored tradition many people of their town practiced to communicate with the souls of the departed, as well as to pray and light candles that symbolized their loved one’s souls, all in an effort to encourage visits by the dearly departed. Lupita smiled as she knew her family would save her some yummy pan de muerto to eat if she felt up to it and just as she thought again of her grandmother, there was a familiar knock upon the door.

6S

Joseph Grant's full 6S catalog is here.

A Purveyor of Needless Things

by Joseph Grant

Mornings are spent in sputtering, confused silences, dishes clutter the sink and countertop, while newspapers pile down the stoop like the forgotten bills upon the table and chair, all of these clouded by rented memories she no longer owns. The nighttime news of the day is a darkening mystery to her, they must make up such horrible stories she will say to herself as she forgets another dinner, all the while she remembers exactly what she wore, the meals she passed on and how much she cried the days FDR and Kennedy died. It is an odd thing, she thinks, when a familiar stranger comes to visit but never stays, saying he must get back to her grandchildren. Some days she welcomes him, but most days he just confuses her with endless questions asking if she remembers names she has never heard, about places she has never been and of experiences she has had, well maybe she did have them, but not with him, she tells the man. What she does know is that the gardening must be tended to and away from the conversation she wanders through the door to the outside and as she prunes, the memories sift and fall away like the soil and leaves in her hand that tends the severed garden. In her way, she thinks of the stranger who is apparently frustrated and leaving, as being just like you and me as we watch her, a purveyor of needless things.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, has been published in over 55 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst.

No Laughing Matter

by Joseph Grant

In the entire world, there was never quite as serious a man as Bernard Strange; if someone at work told a joke, he wouldn’t crack a smile or even be polite enough to say “That’s not funny," he would just dryly mutter: “That’s not material.” As he found nothing funny, because his life was a serious business and one time when he was introduced to a new co-worker, the new arrival mistakenly called him “Bernie” and was sternly corrected by Bernard as he tried to control his blood pressure with a tight-lipped: “It’s Bernard and only Bernard, if you please.” Work was his preoccupation, salvation and his recreation without the need of vacation or a costly wife and family and his perfect attendance record for the last twenty years awed management and horrified his co-workers alike. During his annual job reviews throughout the years, his temperament was described conversely as: “Mr. Strange refuses to take vacation, even when enforced and this worries me,” to the personality of “Hitler with a hangover;" his accounting work was esteemed and flawless and would have been celebrated and framed in the department if not for his dull and negative personality. Fond of pithy quotations from famous accountants throughout history and defending his lack of humor and humility with a “He who laughs last, last best” as his personal mantra, Bernard Strange was ironically struck with a rather peculiar affliction; a mental disorder affecting one 1% of the population: he woke one morning to find himself with acute reverse depression as his psychologist phrased it, and whether it was in a meeting, at a funeral, during a religious service, a serious conversation or on a subway train, Mr. Strange would erupt into a loud, uncontrollable fit of laughter, annoying, alienating or frightening those around him, given the particular circumstance. Such erratic behavior eventually caused him to be fired, tossed from movie theaters and banned from many personally beloved public places and institutions as his once serious façade of the world now in shambles, many saw him as an imbecile at best an escaped lunatic at worst, until it was finally and exceedingly self-evident: the joke was on him.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

It

by Joseph Grant

It watches you when you’re sleeping, just to be certain of each breath. It knows when you’ve been bad, good and nothing at all; It doesn’t care, It’s always there. It waits for you in the darkened recesses of your mind where your fears never cease. It doesn’t feed on anything but those fears of yours, so let It feast. You may pray, cast your holy water; hold tight your crucifix, your talisman, utter your incantations, but these won’t ever work against It. It will just come and get you when It’s good and ready.

6S

Joseph Grant, author of Coma 1967, is originally from New York City and currently resides in Los Angeles. His short stories have been published in over 50 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst. Upcoming pieces will soon be published in Literary Tonic. His work has also appeared in The New York Bar Guide (as a reviewer) and in various newspaper articles that have appeared in The Pasadena Star, Whittier News and the San Gabriel Tribune. "Indigo," a work of verse, was published by Alpha Beat Press, and he has recently completed his first novel.

The Brawler

by Joseph Grant

“Alright fellas, hey, I said break!” the balding referee in the bow tie, blue shirt and pressed black slacks bellowed and pushed Archie “Boom Boom” Mannis and Jimmy Jay Tanner apart as they wound up in yet another crowd-groaning clinch, but not before Tanner threw a few rabbit punches, a thumb, a headbutt and an elbow or two. It had been the second warning by the blood speckled thirty-year veteran and he was clearly becoming agitated, Mannis knew, as he welcomed the breather in between getting pummeled by a palooka like Tanner, but he knew if there was one more hold, they could each be docked a point by the judges down below at ringside and he needed those points. Mannis took a step back from his opponent, a young bleeder, an outside fighter who possessed the exasperating technique and footwork style of stepping back after each combination, sometimes even feinting bolos, making it nearly impossible to weave and let Mannis deliver his signature hook and jab, leading to his legendary power punches. The peal of the round bell sent both combatants tiredly stumbling to neutral corners while Mannis’ Chief Second took out the bloody rubber mouthpiece, gave him water to wash the metallic, bloody taste from his mouth, handed him another mouthpiece, dabbed at the cut above his swollen eye with q-tips dipped in coagulant and Vaseline, with his cut man and corner man both reminding him as he stood to work his uppercut and to remember to keep his guard up. Mannis watched the blurry and slightly chubby round girl as she paraded around the ring in her ridiculously small bikini holding her card too low, not that the fans cared and recalled the card girls were better-looking and had less cottage cheese on the thighs for the bigger purse fights, but this one looked familiar, although he couldn’t remember or not if he had slept with her. Slight nausea washed over Mannis, cold sweat stinging his puffy eyes as the clang sent both he and Turner between the ropes for the last round and as Mannis swung, landed, missed and was tagged repeatedly, hearing the crowd roar in vacuous slow motion, he did not hit the canvas once and although he lost the fight on a split decision, the morning newspapers would write of how the aging boxer was beaten but never is he defeated, go the distance and could leave the ring and his boxing career on his own terms, still standing.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, has been published in over 55 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst. Joe is also a 6SC3 Prize Winner.

What the Movies Don’t Teach You

by Joseph Grant

Life certainly doesn't go the way it does in movies. True love doesn't necessarily stay true, the good die young and many times without reason or rhyme, there are no happy endings in life, many times there are just endings. Villains don’t get always taught a lesson or get their comeuppance; sometimes they get elected to public office and become bigger villains. Wars aren't always just, not always fought for the right reasons and heroes sometimes make it home in body bags. Sometimes heroes don’t come home at all. We are actors constantly in search of a meaningful script, flubbing our most important lines and scenes; only to think of killer lines way past Act One, never comprehending our role, never knowing when Death will yell from the darkness: “Cut... that’s a wrap!”

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is a 6S All-Star. Originally from New York City, he currently resides in Los Angeles.

How to End a Conversation in 6 Words

by Joseph Grant

Being each conversation was about nothing but work, Eileen was in dire straits trying to keep from being bored to tears at her boss’s annual backyard party, when she espied what appeared to be the nose-jobbed, face-peeled and brow-lifted equivalent of the Three Hags from Macbeth toiling in trashy gossip and grandstanding over their social cauldron. “My husband is a CEO with a Fortune 500 Corporation and we usually don’t come to such pedestrian affairs but we are doing the Ibersons a favor, one might say.” “My husband is an investment banker with Morris, Lindell & Kantell on Wall Street as am I and we too are doing the Ibersons a favor; we always summer together with them on the Vineyard, if you must know.” “Well, my husband is a Chief Surgeon over at Methodist and we drove in from the city in the Maserati he gave me last year for the holidays, thank Gawd that we’ve found each other at this party, ladies, as these get-togethers can be so droll and dreary, oh so tell me dear, what does your husband do, if I may ask?” “My husband is an Elvis imitator,” she said to the flabbergasted women, whose tightened mouths suddenly loosened and fell agape. Eileen excused herself with a wry smile as she walked away to get another glass of zinfandel; it was going to be a long night.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, has been published in over 55 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst.

Friends, Lovers & Other Strangers

by Joseph Grant

It was a call from Linda that would change my life inexorably, a woman I used to date back in college and had not heard from in a while. We had drifted apart but stayed friendly after the breakup and sent each other the customary holiday cards and exchanged birthday emails and sent stupid jokes back and forth but she started to date someone she described as extremely jealous and wrote me that if this new person found out we were still in contact that innocent remarks could get taken out of context and that it could cause trouble and she hoped I'd understand if she didn't write me anymore. So, when Linda called me out of the blue and asked me to be a sperm donor to her and her girlfriend, I was taken aback, but honored and since I was batting zero in the fatherhood game and held no heir to bear the family name should it be a boy, I gave pregnant pause to the idea as it very much appealed to me. The plan was that Linda and her partner, Sheri would raise the child and I would be allowed to participate in the child's upbringing, but soon the old petty emotions and ill-conceived notions grew as the idea was consummated into reality and Sheri's jealousy caused her to close ranks around Linda, tersely stating my job as 'baby batter backer' was complete. A beautiful blessing of a baby girl, Angela, was born out of this mess one November day, but the relationship between Linda and Sheri was already in a state of collapse under the strain and pressure of being new parents, not to mention Sheri's wandering eye and the matter was subsequently and litigiously settled through an endless series of custody battles that bore the bitterest of fruit between all parties involved. We were friends once and then lovers and now we are strangers to us all and all whom we shall ever meet.

6S

Joseph Grant is one of 6S's favorite sons, and the hits just keep on coming.

Morning Café

by Joseph Grant

Words are not born on an empty stomach, he sleepily thought as walked along the rough, terra cotta colored floor tiles and sat down at a small table at the café, in as much as they are not inspired by booze. Oh, one could have a fleeting moment of bottled and usually subsequent mottled inspiration, but in the headachy aftermath of a night thought well-spent at the bar instead of at the writing desk, more often than not, the blessed words that came from up on high were usually as confusing a choice as the cursed hideous creature you brought home with you from down low the night before. His eyes scanned the menu written in white chalk on the board behind the copper-hewn bar and he ordered a fritada to allay the rumbling in his stomach and he began to write and since he had not hit the bars or the clubs, the words flowed easily and without wrestling for metaphor or deeper meaning and he wrote that way for a long time uninterrupted. He absolutely loved getting up very early and writing at the café while the rest of the world slept and he believed the words came more freely when he roused himself and shook off the dreams from the long corridors of sleep. To him, writing like this as he had back in New York at the morning cafés in what seemed now several lifetimes ago, was the only way to spend a Saturday morning in Los Angeles or hell, any morning, anywhere for that matter. As he sat near the window to catch the opening sonata of sunlight upon his notebook, Claire and Rose brought over his fritada and latte one right after the other and he sat and wrote happily and assuredly, consuming the breakfast as the words consumed the page and just beyond that window glass other stories were already transpiring and if he was lucky, he would write about them with a clear and sharp perception, not dulled by alcohol, age or emotion, all in due time, he told himself, all in due time.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

The Beautiful and the Damned

by Joseph Grant

She was a beauty, really but a girl of too many ghosts. From the haunted look in her eyes when she brought up her unsuccessful marriages, the children from failed restraining orders, disastrous first dates and poor indecisions of one too many lonely nights. She passed on the one man in her life that held truth in his eyes to take up with a bad boy, full of empty promises and had just begun to wonder if her life would be better if lived alone. She was such a smart young woman, one of the most intelligent he had ever known and for her to take up with such a dope was completely illogical, but when was falling in love ever logical? It was a damned tragedy to him as she could have done anything in her young life rather than be the self-proclaimed savior of the lost boys (not men) in her life who needed nothing more than a mommy figure in their lives. Instead, she lowered herself to the bottomfeeders in life; low-self esteem had a way of conciliating that.

6S

Joseph Grant rocks the 6S mike with force and frequency. His full catalog is here.

Mirage

by Joseph Grant

Walter laughed to himself as he thought of the stupid, white-trash trucker he had cut off a few miles back who thought he owned the road as he drove through the Mojave, a flash from workers were blasting ore in the shadowy mountains caught his attention, their bright orange burst of dynamite and C4 repulsing into columns of gray smoke that rose like Indian spirits into the cloudless desert sky. From years of being in construction management, Walter knew that the rocks being blasted were being taken over to Ludlow or Barstow for milling and grounding and as much as he drove this desolate area on his way to Havasu or Vegas, it didn’t change, only the years, the people and the makes of cars changed; out here time did not make as much an impact as it did in the cities and as a result, the Mojave was the last vestige of fools, dreamers, criminals and the western promise gone mad. It would be a hell of a thing to break down out here, thought Walter, but not like the old days where all one had to pray for was a wayward hauler or a highway patrol on his way home and the answer to that prayer would be for them to be neighborly enough to stop, but people weren’t like that anymore; Walter knew. Walter’s wife, Camille, slept blissfully beside him as he drove on, thoughts of their reaching Lake Havasu in record time where they summered preoccupied his road-weary mind. He smiled at the memory of taking out their pontoon boat last year, drinking spiced rum as he piloted the vessel and floating in the cool yellow-tinged river water once they docked and how free from his aching arthritis he felt drifting there and how when he submerged his balding pinkish pate, the boats zooming by on the surface sounded like electric saws beneath the water. His mind on other, more agreeable things, he did not see the chunk of truck tire splayed on the road or the jagged steel of the wrapped steel wire of the radial tire that would soon flatten two of his own cheap tires or in his anger see the psychotic trucker he had cut off miles back now coming towards him as he struggled arthritically with the lug nuts; nonetheless, there had been strange disappearances in the Mojave that summer, this one yet another unexplained rear-view mirror mirage.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

Corrida

by Joseph Grant

As the boisterous roar of the arena dissolved into an reverent silence, the matador having just performed a flawless veronica with a swirl of his red cape, now held the crowd and his sword firmly in his grasp, the sun glinting off the sharp tip of the blade, dressed in his elegant and colorful traje de luces, he pointed the rapier towards his enraged adversary, a massive bull weighing in at 575 kilograms and for all present, the moment of truth had finally arrived. In anticipation of the kill, the torero shifted his weight from one leg to the other and tried to shrug off the bad omen of the poor performance of the novillero before him who had missed his mark, much to the contempt of the crowd and he hoped that he could strike the bull cleanly and not leave the gritty terracotta littered with blood from one wailing animal and debris and seat cushions from the other; the disapproving crowd. Oven-like heat wavered off of the sand under the sweltering noon-day sun as a single, cool rivulet of perspiration trickled down his cheek, while the only movement to be observed above the sunburst painted wall that ran the length of the entire stadium was that of the vendors incessantly on the run, hocking clinking bottles of Corona for 2 pesos apiece to a crowd already on the collective edge of their seat. The matador stood stone-still like one of the weather-beaten statues in the ancient cobblestoned plaza, waiting for the right moment to finish this macabre dance and noted the brilliant crimson froth at the bull’s nose and mouth, the dark wet matting of the fur on the animal’s neck and back where it had been lanced by the banderilleros and picadors and he listened in wonder as the only sound to be heard was the almost locomotive and mechanical breathing of the frightful black specter in from of him. He thought of how the ancient people of the region believed the bull to be the devil incarnate and empathized with them as it glowered back at him with fiery red eyes, sputum oozing from its gaping maw, possessed horns that could readily gore a man and how the town sent only its bravest to face death in this primeval gladiatorial tradition borne out of fear, praised by victory and marred by tragedy. As the two lives came together in the finality of the inevitable moment, the somberness of the age-old ritual was torn asunder, not by the bull suddenly charging or the matador losing his nerve but by the lone voice of an American woman shouting at him from the stands: “If you kill that bull, you’re an asshole!”

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, has been published in over 55 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst.

A Midsummer Night's Scream

by Joseph Grant

The government did not tell us then nor would it tell us even now and there were only a handful of us left working until recently on the S.O.F.I.A. Project or the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy Program for NASA. S.O.F.I.A. is an extensively adapted Boeing 747SP, equipped to carry a 45,000-pound, 98.4-inch diameter infrared telescope assembly capable of flying at altitudes up to 45,000 feet above the approximately 99 percent of the stratospheric water vapor, enabling the lens to capture images and scale not even attainable by the strongest Earth-based telescopes. Our findings, handed over personally to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President himself, did not even seem to raise an eyebrow, nor did it bring about a world-wide call-to-arms when myself and a group of scientists went public with our report. Instead, what happened was the most confounding and unscientific reaction; the US government immediately fired us, replaced us with scientists who would adhere to their findings and Congress absurdly chose a commission to conduct a lengthy and expensive study of the impending emergency. As the countdown to end times nears and the once neglected churches, synagogues and mosques fill to spurious capacity, I look back to those almost halcyon days when there was actually enough time to send up some sort of celestial response to meet and destroy what the government identified as meteors before what they were quietly upgraded to fireballs had interrupted all computers and electronics, thus making such resistance impossible. What fools these mortals be, I thought, paraphrasing Shakespeare as I looked at the tiny red, glowing objects now noticeable in the warm, summer nighttime sky; they weren’t meteors as the government insisted; but an advancing armada.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

A River Reborn

by Joseph Grant

In retrospect, the great flood that swept through the valley nearly a century ago must have been terrifying, thought Ethan as he scratched his weathered, gray whiskered cheek and ambled over the parched brush that crunched beneath his boots as he examined the land for any evidence of the cataclysm that came in the night and swept people out of their beds and homes, drowning the lucky ones, but allowing the less fortunate to survive with the dreadful memory of loved ones lost and all the while holding onto the fear that always resurfaced with the advent of each falling drop of rain. As a result, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was built two years later, ensuring that such a catastrophe would never again befall the people anywhere in the whole of the 90-mile wide county, but in the process, it smothered many of the natural wetlands and choked off the water supply vital to the once countless beautiful rivers, one in which, as a member of the California Wildlife Preservation Committee, Ethan was standing, the water currently trickling at barely the ankle level, a sad visage of its former self. It had taken the voice of one, a petition of signatures in the hundreds of thousands and a ballot to pass, but in the end it was pushed through county legislature with little to no resistance or protest, as anyone with even a remote memory of that horrendous night were now eking out their last days, oblivious to anything but the flood of atrocious daytime television, if, anything at all. Only half a year had passed, a miracle by bureaucratic standards, but a blink in ecological tenure that Evan stood on the banks of the sinuous new river, no longer nourished by the Aqueduct, which would have been ironic, but in an even more paradoxical twist, by a new water system built to circumvent the now-antiquated and underfed Aqueduct. Within a few years time, the entire area would experience an unlimited environmental renaissance, starting with trout, pike, perch and largemouth bass being reintroduced to the eco-system, which would bring other aquatic life such as frogs, salamanders, snakes, turtles and insects for the fish and birds like the starling, finch, sparrow to pick at the fallen seeds that the scurrying field mice and rabbits would drop in the outer lying grass and sediment, as well as the deer, elk and hawk, which as a result would spark the growth of wild flowers, underbrush, sage and cedar trees beside the newly planted forest of future evergreen put down in the past few months by the Parks Department. Where man had failed his fellow man by building a dam that withstood every rainy night but one, all that it took was a lone voice in the wilderness for man to reinvent himself and rediscover the sanctuary in the cathedral of the pine, the fir and the spruce and as man paddled along in a canoe once again as he had for centuries and marveled at the beauty and the serenity of nature all around him, it was truly a river reborn.

6S

Joseph Grant, whose full catalog is here, is a 6S All-Star and the first featured author in our "Six Sixes" series.

A Far Away Place

by Joseph Grant

All the men went to war that fall, my brother Ryan among them. I remember the last Thanksgiving we had; he was full of youthful hubris, patriotism, Mom's turkey and more than a little bit of Dad's scotch. He joined up and after basic was shipped off to a far away place, a place of which none of us had ever heard. He was killed a day before his twenty-fifth birthday by an IED and I often wonder how he would look all these years later. I reflect back on that time as a turning point; as we would never be that young again; nor our family as whole or as cheerful. Now, when we get together during the holidays, his chair remains empty and self-consciously, we try not to stare at it too often, but we all do.

6S

Joseph Grant, originally from New York City, currently resides in Los Angeles. His short stories have been published in over 40 literary reviews and e-zines, such as Byline, New Authors Journal, Howling Moon Press, Hack Writers, New Online Review, Indite Circle and Cerebral Catalyst. Upcoming pieces will soon be published in Literary Tonic. His work has also appeared in The New York Bar Guide (as a reviewer) and in various newspaper articles that have appeared in The Pasadena Star, Whittier News and the San Gabriel Tribune. "Indigo," a work of verse, was published by Alpha Beat Press, and he has recently completed his first novel.