20200113

Michael O'Brien


blueberry was a boy that ate dog poop

The year was 1887. I was in one of the new schools in Arizona. It was a regular school for the time where kids mostly did normal kid things. Then came along a story about Blueberry. One week just as Spring was getting warmer rumours abounded about a boy that liked to eat dog poop. Me and my gang were walking home from school one day when we spied Blueberry up ahead.

‘Hey Blueberry’ We shouted.

He stops looks around and, ‘What?’

‘We hear you eat dog shit?’ Billy the youngest of our gang shouted.

‘Yeah. What about it?’

We were dumbfounded. None of us knew what to say. I looked off into the distance — I read somewhere that’s what intelligent people do. I saw a hawk in the distance. And that’s when I knew what to say.

‘Why you eat it?’ I said in a presocratic tone.

‘Because it tastes good’.



things as they are


Mute militia. Where did all the cowboys get to? Checking the time on his phone. Writing notes by phone light. Memories of a road house. The sound of his son sleeping. A light snore and the smell of mango. A blackbird’s trill. The early city bus sending the retail workers to electric salt mines.




Michael O’Brien is the author of: As Adam (UP Literature), Big Nothing (Bones), The Anabasis of Man (Yavanika Press) et.al. His writing has been published widely in print and on the internet, and translated into other languages. He is the curator of Weird Laburnum. You can follow him on twitter @michaelobrien22
 
 
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1 Comments:

Blogger Jack Galmitz said...

Now I see why.

5:00 AM  

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