“There are some touching illusions which are, perhaps, sublime realities.”—Victor Hugo, Les Miserables A HEART BENEATH A STONE “The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, that is love. Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars. How sad is […]
All Posts By: Byron McCoy
Short Story
ON MOUNTAIN’S TOP
“Sharpen your sight, Reader: the truth, this time, is covered by a thinning veil, and so, the meaning should be easy to perceive.” —Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Purgatory, Canto VII, lines 19-21. “I’m reading it all again,” Ryan shared. “I finished Vita Nuova and began The Diving Comedy yesterday. I didn’t sleep well […]
Journal Pages
MR. LESSMORE
I read to my daughter last night. It was a book we had not shared together in many years; a children’s book that, like most beautiful stories, says something more and different as we grow and learn its telling in different life lights. It told of a man who loved books, who began […]
Short Story
GOOD AT BAT
The father watched his son from the stands. In the at bat, his son fouled seven pitches away, watched two balls outside the strike zone pass, then struck out swinging on a fastball high and outside—a good pitch and one the boy, given the count, had to go for. It was a […]
Short Story
WORLD ON FIRE
I still see them as we found them, the first torn open with pattern of punctures from M-240 impacts, small holes in front that blew open in back; further effect of burst tearing and leaving neck opened wide. Blood was everywhere, most dark and some still bright when we reached him. You could read […]
Short Story
ENDEARMENT
He spoke to his angel. “I’m out of words,” he shared. “I have nothing left to tell. The dream is gone.” “It was a good run!” his angel answered mirthful in reply, “…but I don’t believe you. If you are empty, I will miss your writing. I will miss existence […]
Journal Pages / Quick Thought
THE PASSION
“But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of […]
Short Story
LOVE IN THE RAIN
The front showed in bands across the western sky, cream wisp of clouds above shadow underside of storm, their contrast lighted sharp by the rising eastern sun. Sky weighed cool and damp with the scent of humus—spring’s living earth disturbed, trodden, and cloven between hooves into mud beneath ranging cattle—holding in its air. […]
Short Story
PERCEPTION OF PURPOSE
“All novels, all poetry, are built to the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”—John Steinbeck, East of […]