Poverty

By Top Writers Block

This is poverty in its various states, depending on the person experiencing it. A selection of short stories which may just have you experiencing poverty for yourself.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Top Writers Block
• Release date: Jul 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301253654

Top Writers Block

Top Writers Block is a diverse and eclectic group of talented writers who decided to write stories together - just for the fun of it! We are happy to announce that authors proceeds have always gone, and will continue to go, to Sea Shepherd.fr every time Smashwords has made a payment! Thank you to those who have supported the group, independent authors, and Sea Shepherd. Our collections are usually written with one theme or genre in mind. Each author contributes when they have the time, so some of the collections have as many as twelve authors participating. Every collection has something new, with stories and poems ranging from romance, drama, and adventure to mystery, fantasy, and horror. All the Top Writers Block's proceeds will go to Sea Shepherd, so by buying you are helping to keep our oceans alive! Thank You all so much!

Book preview

A Collection of Short Stories

by

Top Writers Block

based on the theme

‘Poverty’

Copyright©June 2013 Top Writers Block

Published by Top Writers Block at Smashwords

ISBN: 9781301253654

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

Credits

Cover photo : Elizabeth Rowan Keith

Cover design : David H. Keith

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE PRINCE OF POVERTY – Bill Rayburn

HIS BEER BOTTLE, HER NEW KEY – Anna Scott Graham

RICH MAN, POOR MAN – Barnaby Wilde

MONSTERS ARE REAL – Melissa A. Szydlek

POVERTY – Don P. Bick

DYE POT – Jeffra Hays

A HOLE IN THE WORLD – David Keith

DEAR DIARY – Elizabeth Rowan Keith

IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER – Suzy Stewart Dubot

THE FIX IT LADY – Gary Weston

The Prince of Poverty

by

Bill Rayburn

I am a native Californian, having only recently moved to London. I was born in 1960 in the San Francisco Bay Area, have lived on the east coast (northern New Jersey), and now have crossed the pond to ply my wares in the old country. I am currently marketing a collection of my fictional short stories, while working on a 'memoIRISH novel' (does that phrase even exist?).

Open to suggestions, critique etc.

Copyright©2013 Bill Rayburn

Pauper: a person destitute of means except such as

are derived from charity

Perry Politieri gave his life away to charity. Literally. He was very disturbed by the definition above. Why a person who avails himself of charity would be automatically considered ‘destitute of means’? Poverty had been painted with such an ugly brown shade of shit, that the reality of being poor wasn’t enough. Society had to harness the yoke of shame to your poor carcass.

Rich from some vague stock merger that made him obscenely wealthy, he decided to give a lot of it away and live on the poverty line. For a year.

He slept under bridges, frequented shelters; he made mental lists of places to give money to when his year was up. He was as close to a modern day hero as anyone else.

And here’s the kicker. After the year? He took the million he’d set aside for his re-entry into high society, and promptly donated it to help build a hospital. He remained poor. By choice.

And never once did Perry feel like a pauper. Sure, he availed himself of all that society offers to the unfortunate, but he felt that was the smart thing to do. Especially after he’d given away his safety net. He didn’t feel like a heel, or a reprobate. The old saying about walking a mile in a man’s shoes before judging him? It was never truer for Perry than during this experience.

None of the people Perry encountered in his year and a half on the streets of Seattle knew of the wealth Perry once had. He never told anyone that at one time he had Bill Gates’ personal cell phone number programmed into his own cell. That he dined and drank with Paul Allen. That he considered Bill Russell a close personal friend. Only his brother and his mom knew what he had done and where he was.

When he died suddenly of a heart attack, nobody knew who he was, initially. The paramedics treated it like the death of another, well, pauper.

Perry had carried no ID.

It took his brother four days to track down Perry’s body.

His life would eventually be made into a movie.

His gesture, incredible as it was, was also far more than a mere empathetic effort to understand the homeless issue in America. He knew many wealthy people who gave money to causes just so they did not have to understand how the problems occurred. Money was their shroud behind which they could pretend the exclusive life they lived was real.

Being rich is often surreal. There are few that do it well. And even fewer that do it with grace and dignity. It must be very difficult to remain attached to one’s ethics when you can virtually have anything you want.

The only thing Perry let go of was his money.

The movie?

Straight to video.

Return to Table of Contents

His Beer Bottle, Her New Key

by

Anna Scott Graham

Anna Scott Graham is a native Californian, a wife of one, mother to several. She often writes literary fiction and family saga, with a dash of sci-fi on the side.

Copyright 2013 by Anna Scott Graham

He sat on the front porch, a beer in hand, but it was empty. Still, it felt good to hold it. He liked the feel of glass, albeit hollow, under his fingertips and against his palm. It wasn’t like holding her, but a damn sight better than a lot of other things.

Baby, he’d tell her, if she was around, you know I’m sorry, Jesus effing Christ I’m sorry.

She didn’t like it when he swore and used JC together. Still, that’s how he felt, so effing sorry. Then he smiled – she’d nearly purged the fucking F word from his vocabulary. Nearly, he sighed.

He tried for another sip, but not even a hint of liquid landed on his tongue. Shit. He stood, stretched, then peered through the shrouded window, the curtain thin and frayed, but still as thick as lead, as if he was Superman, what she used to call him after a long night of… He sighed again. Loving her. He still loved her, Christ, would it ever stop?

A breeze blew, cooling the back of his neck, sweat having collected as he’d sat on the porch, thinking about her, grasping that empty bottle, which was still in his hand. He set it down, next to the side of the house, then he took three steps away from the window, toward the front door. She had changed the goddamned locks, that stupid… He stopped, the wind cooling more than his neck. Temper, temper, he inhaled, so wishing for a drop of beer.

But not one speck remained; he couldn’t even inhale anything, well, especially not with the bottle on the porch by her bedroom window and him a foot from the locked front door. He couldn’t even get inside the fucking house, that goddamned…

Hush your mouth rang in his head. Stop that kinda talk, you hear me?

Yes, I hear you. He glared at an imaginary figure whose authentic tone calmed his forked tongue. Only she did this to him, only she made him feel so…

The engine’s roar caught him out; he hadn’t expected to be there when she got home. But if that was true, why had he been loitering on her porch? He didn’t look at her, hearing the engine die, the car door open, then slam shut. He was looking at the empty bottle. She’d stare at him first, but as soon as she was close enough, that effing empty beer bottle…

What’re you doing here? she yelled, halfway to the house.

He sighed, then glanced at her. Goddamnit but she looked good – tight jeans, high heels, a low-cut top covered by a sheer blouse that didn’t conceal everything. She had lost a couple of pounds, well, maybe five. All it did was hollow out her cheeks a little, which made her look a bit tired. Or maybe it was from being on her feet all day.

I was just…

Drinking on my goddamn front porch. She reached the steps, but came no closer. Do I need to call the fucking cops?

He wanted to smile. Her language was no better than his, but if he smiled, she’d get even more pissed. He frowned instead. Go ahead, call ’em. I don’t give a fucking shit…

She pointed at him. Don’t you talk to me that way!

What way? Now anger flared; he hated it when she waved her hand at him, and he really hated it when she pointed at him like he wasn’t a man but a misbehaving child or a dog.

You know damn well what way. She crossed her arms, like putting away a sword. He inhaled, thankful those weapons were laid down, also grateful for another cool breeze. Not that it calmed her fury, as she tapped her foot. But he felt better.

Sometimes, even when she was irate, he felt okay. It was from how she tried not to irritate him. She was like that sometimes – sometimes she didn’t mean to make him so mad.

Then she pulled out her key. It was a new key, not that it shone, but he had tried his, no luck. She dangled hers like a red flag.

He longed for the wind, or a smile. Even if she flashed that I’ll get you asshole smile, at least she was grinning at him. If she was grinning, and not pointing her finger, half the battle was won.

And she knew it too. She sighed, stopped tapping her foot, then dropped her hand, holding the key at her side. She looked defeated, which pierced him. She was beautiful, also depleted, because he was there; she had to face changing the locks in front of him. She had been threatening to do it for years, and she finally had, and hadn’t told him. Now she was telling him, that somewhat shiny key all the words necessary.

He said nothing, no words like no more beer. But he sighed, a language all its own. Peevish inhalations and weary exhalations were code for I’m sorry, Why’d you do that, I don’t give a shit anymore, Fuck you. Get the fuck outta my house had turned into I’m the only one with a key.

Well, her sister probably had one too. But he didn’t.

He didn’t have a key, maybe Glenda didn’t have one either. She and Glenda were always bitching at each other, behind their backs or right to their faces, just like she did with him. But that key, glistening in the late afternoon sun, was more like a brick up his head. His face hurt on both sides, one for finding his key didn’t work anymore, the other for the new key still tight in her hand.

So, you gonna stand there all day? she said, resignation in her tone.

Dunno. Which was the truth; he didn’t have any other place to go.

Well shit. She nearly pointed at him, but stopped herself. Her shoulders slumped, the key almost falling from her grasp. He stared at that key, an interloper. Then he heard a strange sound, as if she had cried uncle.

Tears were starting to roll down her cheeks. What? she said, sounding eleven or twelve, just when girls don’t want anyone, especially adults, to see them lose control.

What what? he said, trying not to stare at her, but failing.

You know the fuck what. She so badly wanted to wipe her face; she hated crying.

Lemme come in, we can talk.

Oh sure, she laughed, brushing the back of her left hand against her cheek like shooing an errant fly. You’ll just come back in and…

Baby, shit. I’m sorry. How many goddamn times you want me to say it?

Don’t you fucking swear at me!

Christ, he muttered. Okay, I’m sorry. Look…

She started to point again and he wanted to knock her hand down, wanted to twist that arm behind her until she did cry uncle. He wanted to…

Die. Hurting her again, even in his head, was like killing himself. Fuck it. His voice wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t quiet. He walked to the far end of the porch, past the beer bottle and her bedroom window, from where he had seen the sun rise countless times. Reaching the edge of the porch, he jumped off, less than a foot to the ground as the yard wasn’t level, rising on that side of the property.

Where you going? she hollered.

He turned her way. What’s it matter to you? You changed the… He almost said fucking lock. The front door lock. What do you care where I’m going, huh?

She glared at him, her full lips trembling. Then she shoved the key in her jeans’ pocket, crossed her arms, marching his way. Don’t you walk away from me when I’m…

What, huh? When you’re what?

By now she was two feet away, smelling like perm solution and hair dye and sweat.