Issue Three, Volume Five

From the Desk of the Editor;

Hello and welcome to another issue of Larks Fiction Magazine. Due to a recent injury (see attached photo and story) I haven't been as vigilant at keeping up with the In-Box. My apologizes.

We had a work get withdrawn so this week is a little thin on quantity but has plenty of quality. We are offering a work of one of our favorite poets Charles Bernard and the story behind my leg!

Enjoy,

Daniel J. Pool

LFM Editor

Fogged Drenched Sun

Photo by Jessica Rowse

The African Child

By Charles Bernard

Dark as graphite yet his teeth glitters

Cracked lips yet his smiles radiates

Empty belly yet he is laughter filled

Under the burning sun he lives

Burning with zeal and hope

Bleak future dream at its peak

Magnificent walk on cracked feet

From dirt a rose spring fort

Black skin and a pure heart

He is African and happy

For more about Charles follow him @chalzz619 and see his blog at http://greendiarynotes.wordpress.com/

What Really Happened at Fox House

By Daniel J. Pool

As many of you have heard, the Larks Media team has been busy fixing up a historic building in Lindsay, Oklahoma to be our new world headquarters. The building is well over one-hundred years old and needs more than a little tender-love-and-care to bring it up to snuff.

Our current project was to refinish a back porch that had been converted into an enclosed sun room. Our plan is to make it into a bathroom (on account of indoor plumbing not being a well accepted practiced when originally built).

We ran into the issue that builders from before statehood were not governed by any codes for constructing homes (or the laws of physics). Some rooms were built to withstand a direct hit from an artillery shell while others were being held together by prayers and cinder-blocks.

We chose to reinforce.

To do this we ripped out a rotten floor and placed more floor beams into the structure. This gave us a good strong base to put a sub-floor on.

While placing the sub-floor I got the bright idea to skip across the rafters to show off to my father-in-law. As if karma was sitting on my shoulder, I miscalculated my footing and fell straight between the newly reinforced wooden beams.

The fall was more unexpected than painful but seemed to take several minutes to finish. This gave my brain ample time to call myself every name known to man for a clumsy moron while skinning my shin down the hundred year old beam.

As if my ego needed another kick to the head, I discovered that my fall was nearly a full foot longer than I thought it should have been. This was mostly in part to be distracted by how bad my leg suddenly felt but also because minutes before I had the fore thought to dig out the crawl space.

You see there is nothing worse than a fat man stuck under a house. Except maybe being that fat man trapped under the house using a hand spade to burrow to freedom. Thus I dug the crawl space out to allow easy access to plumbing.

This also resulted in easy access to my most personal inventory.

Now face down in the silt of red dust common to Oklahoma, my pride attempted to hide further under the house while I gulped down curse words.

My father-in-law, true to form, asked if I was “Alright.”

Not to show weakness in front of him I answered “Fine.”

So I gathered myself up. Dusted myself off. Then hurried outside. Safely outside I released a string of language so blue that the neighbors are still keeping their children inside for fear of frost bite.

Having let go I felt much better. In fact the leg just looked. Gathering myself up I returned inside just in time to watch my father-in-law make the exact same miscalculation. A cloud of dust, obscene words, and a ball cap sailed into the air.

I asked him if he was “alright” to which he said, “I'm fine.”

So we boarded over the rafters with plywood and called it a day. Now I'm on the mend but I still look like a Willy Wonky blueberry in need of juicing. It's not stopping me from getting around but I have to keep it elevated and medicate liberally.

And that's what really happened... mostly.

Thanks for reading!