New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 13
by Grant Bailie
New Hope For Small Men is a serial with new chapters published each Monday and Friday. A list of installments so far appears to the right.Did the manager’s wife love him? Did she take him in her arms at night and kiss the stress from his brow and pet his receding hair? Was he sweet with her, and did she respond in kind? Did they undress in the same room? Did she open her legs for him, did he lay on top of her or did she straddle him? This was not fodder. This was anti-fodder.
It was heartbreaking that the undeserving should know love while he awoke every morning to the screams of cable installers, and spent his free afternoons doing nothing or watching Mr. Carleton sip tea and stare out the window.
“Look,” Mr. Carleton said. “Do you see those two pigeons on the line? No, the other line.”
There were two pigeons sitting on a phone line. The pigeons were spotted black and white like cows. They were standing very close to each other, looking at the world beneath them, which at that moment was quiet.
Mr. Carleton dabbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
Comments
The story so far...
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
About the author
New Hope For Small Men was written during Grant's participation in Novel: A Living Installation, for which he spent thirty days writing in an architect-designed habitat at New York's Flux Factory.
Acknowledgements
But most especially I would like to dedicate this book to Sara Clarke, who was there for me when I was willing to sell the dedication of this book for a pack of cigarettes. This book is for you, Sara. I have since quit smoking.