...sorry I’ll miss out tonight....try to ring in tomorrow....my oldest son got married in a brief civil ceremony tonight...off to hoist a pint to their future....
Congrats to GNTSON and GNT fam!
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...sorry I’ll miss out tonight....try to ring in tomorrow....my oldest son got married in a brief civil ceremony tonight...off to hoist a pint to their future....
Congrats! Is this the one you're not that fond of? I hope it has turned around since the birth of Bryson and all things will be well....sorry I’ll miss out tonight....try to ring in tomorrow....my oldest son got married in a brief civil ceremony tonight...off to hoist a pint to their future....
And no, I didn't see him as mentally challenge. Psychotic? Maybe. If I choose to believe that he killed his wife and son.There doesn't seem to be a motive for the narrator's actions (if in fact he is the killer, although this is what the reader is led to believe) and he is a sympathetic character, I think. I felt sorry for him. How he leaves on the light in case his son comes home...the empty house and the dark winter landscape, it all adds up. I didn't get the feeling that he was mentally challenged or psychotic, though. Did anyone else?
I agree I think the son saw, that's why I thought maybe he killed him too. But very easily could have run off and really, the story is more in that camp.I think the boy saw what his father was doing and ran off. Maybe saw his mother with the hogs. There is a line "I told him not to go and look, that the hogs just squeal because I never kill them."
That was an awesome story Doc. I'm going to have to track down this collection. I really like the dark minimal style.
I thought you guys in Alabama were Waffle people not Pancake people.
This story, as with most of Breece's stories, is about loneliness and alienation. I thought it sad how the old man didn't even see his coworker, Mr. Weeks, except when he happened to pass him in his snowplow. I guess he spoke to him only on the telephone.
....she has grown on me a bit....hopefully it’s not just human mildew.....Congrats! Is this the one you're not that fond of? I hope it has turned around since the birth of Bryson and all things will be well.
Or Meteor $h+t !....she has grown on me a bit....hopefully it’s not just human mildew.....
Seeing I was reading something with King talking in Bare Bones: Conversations in terror with Stephen King. King mentioned the short story 'Pigeons from Hell' by Robert E. Howard (I can't remember who he was talking too, and what he was talking, I think it was to do with some television program). Anyway, maybe this is a good story:Volunteer for next week? Shout out with story title and link.
Good observations.....this is why I enjoy this exercise as much as I do.....meeting new "voices".....I see and appreciate the avenues others went down, judging our isolated protagonist-agree that he has been and may continue to be, a plow driving serial killer.....as far as motivation, I opine that he suffers from PTSD, related to his service as a paratrooper....after all, he had his first taste of government sanctioned murder here.....
“It snowed like this in France the winter of ‘forty-four,'” I say. “I was in the paratroops, and they dropped us where the Germans were thick. My platoon took a farmhouse without a shot.”
“Damn,” he says. “Did you knife them?”
“Snapped their necks,” I say, and I see my man tumble into the sty. People die so easy.
.....something from this time in service gave him a level of contempt for the "fools" of the human race....and he chose to act on this contempt by using Hitler-esque judgment for his victims, with the swine serving as porcine equivalents of furnaces/gas chambers.....it would not surprise me at all that he killed his wife and son, and the light in the kitchen is version of masking guilt...."maybe he'll be back".......
Spidey, I fixed your link to the story. It was opening up on the third chapter instead of the opening of the story. All good now!Group read for March 27th. Group leader Blake
Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard
Pigeons from Hell
Thank you!!Spidey, I fixed your link to the story. It was opening up on the third chapter instead of the opening of the story. All good now!
Sorry to be so late chiming in. What a creepy little story!I had the feeling that the old man was the one responsible for killing other hitchhikers and he hadn't killed the young man because he looked or reminded him of his son. Thoughts?
Cat, great catch! All those quotes certainly help your argument. I can kick myself for missing or overlooking the flashlight quote.Sorry to be so late chiming in. What a creepy little story!
For sure, the man was the killer.
My argument for him being the killer...
Look under the seat for my flashlight, boy.”
He bends forward, grabbing under the seat, and his head is turned from me. But I am way too tired now, and I don’t want to clean the seat.
I don't want to clean the seats, which earlier he said were vinyl and cold but easy to clean.
And he absolutely fed the hitchhikers to the pigs. And, his son. I think so...
I ought to feed them better than that awful slop, but I can’t until I know my boy is safe. I told him not to go and look, that the hogs just squeal because I never kill them. They always squeal when they are happy, but he went and looked. Then he ran off someplace.
He either fed his son to the pigs because he found out what dear old dad was doing, or maybe he did run off. Either way, I think this means the son found out.
And then the last paragraph. I think he fed himself to the pigs.
I pull up beside my house. My hogs run from their shelter in the backyard and grunt at me. I stand by my plow and look at the first rims of light around Sewel Mountain through the snowy limbs of the trees. Cars hiss by on the clean road. The kitchen light still burns, and I know the house is empty. My hogs stare at me, snort beside their trough. They are waiting for me to feed them, and I walk to their pen.
Great story, Doc. Another new author for me.