The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword

By James Dale

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD, a chapbook of melodramas, love stories, and epic poems by James Dale. Embrace the niches; a genre within a genre within a genre.
This eBook includes:
A coming-of-age tale of a bear cub named Graham on a "Class Trip" at the Man-zoo
where his curiosity about humans fuels his ambition to stand up for human rights leads him down
an unfavorable path to make a political statement/difference.
A tall tale about Percy Freedman, who got drafted during WWI then inadvertently
vaccinated with a super serum at the peak of the Spanish flu outbreak and becomes "Percy
Freedman: Well built, Man."
A powerful fiction about Meredith, a single mother who struggles to find
inner strength. Her estranged husband, Bryce, abandoned her, and she's reluctant to "Dropoff."
Chandra, her three-year-old at daycare. It's a race against time to sign the divorce papers filed by her
soon-to-be ex-husband.
An after-school melodrama about the "Morning-after" prom night when Brett, a careless
a teenage boy discovers more about Gwendolyn, his date than he anticipated.
Plus, much, much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Dale
• Release date: Oct 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005189563

James Dale

James Daleemail: [e-mail]:James Dale is a Jamaican American author. He co-authored Just Another Hope-full Fool in Love, Written in Vampire's Blood: The Stranger, Bound by Honor, Betrayed by Trust and Politricks: It's All Political.He's earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing at Full Sail University. When he's not driving a city bus or posting his spoken word poetry on his YouTube channel, James makes his wife of fourteen years and his three daughters climb the walls with laughter from his witty banter and dry sense of humor. The third entry to his first book of poetry, Just Another Hope-full Fool in Love will be available in late 2022.LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/james-dale-89593214/Instagram@JustanotherhopefullfoolloveTwitter@hopefullfool81YouTube channelhttps://youtube.com/user/eaton220ify

Book preview

The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword

(A Chapbook)

By: James Dale

Copyright©

2021 James Dale

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer.

Thank you for your support.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the

copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

For more information, address:

[e-mail]

First e-book edition October 2021

Book design by James Dale

Photographs: by Maria Pop @ www.pexels.com

Designdrunkard www.pexels.com

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright

Table of content

Introduction

Half-day

Botanical Gardens

Percy Freedman, Codename: Well-built Man

Three Vampire’s walked into a blood bank

The Forger

Class trip

The Carnival

The Morning After

Gilgamesh, Match of all Ages

Black Asphodel

The Drop-off

One Pair

Fatty Boom, Boom

A Poet’s Poem to Poetry (Ode to Spoken Word)

Code of the Streets: Story of Bernard

Action Figure

Author’s Biography

About the Author

Introduction

Thank you for downloading this eBook. Contents of this book remains the copyrighted property of James Dale and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. This e-book contains works of flash fiction, prose and short stories and are the figment of my imagination.

Any resemblance to anyone living, deceased, events in history or actual locations are purely coincidental. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. 

Thank you for your support.

Half-day

It all happened circa 1989, I was in the third grade, and my brother Matthew was in the eighth grade. We attended Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s Catholic school in the Bronx, New York.

It was a Wednesday afternoon; I remember it like yesterday because we had a half-day of school on Wednesdays. My father usually picked us up, but for some reason, that day, he didn’t. Matthew, his friends, and I idled in the courtyard in front of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s like we did every day after school. As they talked amongst themselves, I felt a rumbling in my stomach. I looked towards the entrance of the school as Sister Michelle closed the doors.

I pulled on Matthew’s arm and said, Please, let’s go home! I think I have to–

Jamie, don’t you see me talking? Hold on a minute. We have plenty of time to get home, he replied, then he turned around and continued his conversation with his friends.

My stomach grumbled a bit louder, so I placed my hands over my belly and clenched my buttocks tight to stop a catastrophe from happening.

After twenty minutes of trying to coax him for us to go, he said, Okay, okay, we could go – are you happy now?

I sighed in relief, but I fretted while I strolled with my hands over my stomach during the ten-minute trek to the bus stop. My brother squinted his eye and said, If didn’t know any better, I would think that you had to take a ––

No, you’re wrong; we did sit-ups in gym class today, and my abs are sore, is all, I replied.

My stomach grumbled even louder, and I clenched my derrière even tighter. Beads of sweat collected on my forehead as we waited for seemed like an eternity at the bus stop for the bus to come. It pulled to the curb not a moment too soon. The driver opened the door, and we both showed him our school bus passes after we boarded the bus. I ignored all the empty seats; I walked to the back and stood up by the rear exit. I didn’t want to sit down and mimic the position of being on the toilet, so I stood up.

After a few minutes, the cramps in my bowels went away but not completely, but I felt like I needed to pass gas, though, so I decided to release some pressure off my stomach. I thought to myself, Maybe the doo-doo went away. I looked around the bus to make sure nobody was watching me, and I eased out a fart. But it wasn’t just gas – a flurry of poop came out as well.

I was shocked, embarrassed, and relieved all at the same time. I made the worst mistake of my life. Luckily, our bus stop wasn’t too far ahead, so I pulled the stop request cord, and we got off the bus at the next stop. Usually, we would get on another bus that would’ve taken us up the street and dropped us off in front of our building.

Since I had pooped my pants, I didn’t feel comfortable getting on another bus. So, I said, Let’s walk up the block!

Matthew furrowed his eyebrows, curled his upper lip and said, What has gotten into you, huh? It’s the middle of winter; I’m freezing my butt off. You’ve been acting strange all afternoon.

I didn’t answer him, so he shrugged his shoulders, and we walked up the hill.

About five yards into our journey Matthew sniffed in the air like a bloodhound. He looked underneath his left and then his right foot to see if he stepped in dog filth.

I raised my eyebrows and walked slower behind him so the stench wouldn’t pick up downwind. He didn't find where the stench came from, so he shrugged his shoulders and kept walking.

Matthew looked down behind me at the trail of brown footprints and poop dropping down my pant leg when we arrived inside our building. He raised his eyebrows, held his hand over his nose, pointed at me, and said, Why didn’t you tell me that you needed to use the bathroom? We could have stopped somewhere, and you could’ve used the bathroom. He snickered and pinched his nose as he opened the door to our apartment.

After we got inside, he ran to my father and said, Daddy, daddy! Jamie pooped himself. He ruined his uniform pants. You should beat him for being so irresponsible.

My father sighed, approached me, and shook his head as the poop ran out the bottom of my pant leg down on the top and sides of my penny loafers. He put his hands on akimbo and stood there in silence. He took a deep breath, about-faced, walked towards his bedroom, and locked the door.

My brother scrambled to the windows in the apartment and lifted them open in succession. He grabbed two bottles of air freshener, held his tie over his nose, and sprayed them throughout the apartment.

I held my head down, drooped my shoulders, and attempted to take off my poop-stained uniform pants in the foyer of our apartment. I heard an echo of my father’s raucous laughter from behind my parent’s room door.

Ten minutes later, he came out and helped me take off the rest of my soiled clothes. I got into the shower and washed away the filth and my embarrassment down the drain.

Botanical Gardens

The security guard opened the wrought iron gate. It squealed like Wilbur, from Charlotte's Webb. I held my red Optimus Prime lunch box with a bologna, cheese, and mustard sandwich inside. The tour guide led my group inside the botanical gardens. I smiled at the butterflies