Okay-

Tales of Timeless Springs is currently in the hands of two wonderful grammar lovers that are sweeping the 100 page novella anthology thing for typos and whatnot. And while the cover and my final sweeps through the book are still pending, I thought I'd offer a tiny little taste of what's to come. Which, I suppose, is fairly generous considering that one of the stores is due to appear in Random Transmissions and another has been submitted to a journal. But there's nothing here so fuck it, why not give you a little taste? I'm excited to bring this little bastard into the world. One reader has said my writing has only improved, and another that he couldn't decide if he liked it more because the story or the writing is better. Both of these are from people who care less about my feelings than the hippy's cat.

Uno has probably figured out 100 different ways to kill me,
but hasn't out of respect for the hippy.

But before we get to the whole sample thing, UPDATES:

I'm doing a thing.
I am appearing at the Michigan Authors on the Grand Aual Event on Saturday, April 14th. I'll have a table set up with copies of She Sees Metaphors and I'll be giving a reading at 2:30. The event takes place in DeWitt and should be a rocking good time, so I totally think that you should come on out and see me and some other local authors. 



Who are these guys? 
The latest episode of We Write Weird Shit is up and this is the last one that Jon or I will be reading from our work for the foreseeable future. We've got our own shit to work on for the time being, BUT we've got three episodes featuring guest authors coming. First off, we'll have a story by Justin Day of Random Transmissions fame. After that will be Robert Goyette, the man behind The Powder Burns (whose music we use as our intro for WWWS). And finally, we'll have a story from Cody Lee, a god-king of nerd culture and all around love man. (I'm not sure if Cody has work out there at the moment, however I am super stoked to see his work.)

And that's all for now! Stay tuned for more updates and, as promised...

Here's a sample from Tales of Timeless Springs!



The disgusting shit heel patron was thrown out of the bar and into the streets of shattered concrete, where Mother Nature, the greedy whore, had begun sending her saplings and roots to break out and start covering the city of Timeless Springs in her life. The shit heel picked himself up with a throbbing pace, and the spirits he’d consumed the early afternoon hours nauseated his bloated gut. The bartender stood behind him, watching, waiting to see what he’d do, if danything. It crossed the shit heel’s mind to turn around and reclaim his dignity with a few blows to the bartender’s head, and mid turn he lost his balance and fell to the ground, blood and sick trailing from his face like a punctured carton. Satisfied, the bartender, Jon Bull, headed back inside.
In this part of town, calling the sad sight of a man outside a shit heel was calling the kettle black. They renamed this neighborhood Junk some years back, on account of the manner in which its residents and business owners lived their lives, like a heard of junkies some farmer gathered into a pen to keep away from the rest of the economy forwarding townies to hopefully kill themselves off. Even if they didn’t, they still brought something to the tax man’s table, so at least they had some semblance of value.
Jon Bull was the least black of all the pots in his bar, but he fit in as seamlessly as any other that walked into his place, the Echo Tavern. Bull was the oldest tough guy in the city, or so they said. He was gentler now, at least to anyone who didn’t disrespect him in his bar. But in his day he was as violent and vicious as an ocean storm, and rumor had it even the worst of the gang heads wouldn’t cross him. The law was enough to worry about.
At the counter were three men, all nearly as drunk as the shit heel outside, but none so drunk that they’d give in to their stupidity and allow themselves to say something disrespectful to Old Bull. The air in the Echo Tavern was heavy with depression. Selby Jer, an old widower who never could get over the loss of his claimed, let his head hang low as there wasn’t much life in him to keep it up.
“Been two weeks,” Selby Jer said. “Feels like two minutes.”
Selby’s story, a definite tale of woe, didn’t end with the passing of his missus. She’d been long gone, buried in the earth and turned to dirt before Old Bull knew Selby by his first name. It most recently came to its next chapter of misery with the disappearance of his son, Cart, just nine years of age and all pitiful old Selby had to keep him going every morning.
“It’s a damn shame, Selby,” Owski, a young dealer who liked Selby enough to pass pushing his product on him, like he always did to the poor sobs with their tales of misery and need to just end it all. Not that it didn’t cross his mind, but like a monogamous man who allows himself to just consider a night with the working girl, he stayed faithful. “I’m sorry, friend. I mean it. No man should have to go through what you’ve been going through.”
“Another?” Old Bull said. He stopped charging Selby a while ago, once the spirits had their grip on him but wouldn’t let the misery out, keeping that possessing ghost within.
Selby made a gesture that might have been a yes, but no one could say for certain. His head lulled around as though some wind or wave only available to him pushed his head around. Bull capped the bottle and set it aside. He wouldn’t keep filling Selby up when he was hardly there anymore.
“If you want, you can take some of mine,” the third man, Logger said.
Logger was a bloated old drunk, with a violent bark and a bite to match. He sqt quietly to the side, looking at Selby Jer as a man that brought this misery on himself. When Selby, Owski, and Bull spoke of their empathy for Cart being one of a long line of young boys that disappeared over the years, a sad truth that haunted Timeless Springs longer than it should, with not even one violator sent to the labor camps or the noose in punishment. Sooner or later a boy always went missing and the cops gave up and filed the complaint away with others dating back so long there were rumors some of them dated before the city separated from the world. Not that it mattered, to Selby. He just missed his boy.
“Hey Owski,” Bull said, “take him home, will ya? Watch over him?”
Bull slid a small envelope Owski didn’t have to open to know it contained more than enough for him to make up for the losses he’d suffer that night for not dealing. True, he could take the money and leave Selby on his own, but Owski wasn’t stupid enough to take money from Old Bull and break the contract. There were better ways to get in deep water, better ways to end up like those poor boys no one found.
Owski took Selby and lifted him, and the two slowly shuffled towards the door and out into Junk, where the night would be quiet and uneventful for the two of them. Once they left, Bull returned to his place behind the counter, just him and Logger. There was room to argue that the two most violent men in the city were sitting across from each other that evening. In the spirit of the night, Bull poured Logger a drink.
“On the house,” Bull said.
Logger raised his eyebrow in surprise. He nodded with entitlement and hadn’t bothered to say thanks, which Bull wouldn’t forget. He felt the same way towards Logger as the shit heel he threw out earlier, but Logger always paid for his drinks and as long as he didn’t offend Bull, his money was good at the Echo Tavern.
Logger looked at Bull with the vacant stare of an alcoholic and shook his head while he drank his on-the-house liquor.
“I didn’t realize a whore’s life meant so much to the rich.”
Bull, who had been looking at a faded, torn around the edges, poster of some woman from before the city was on its own broke his focus and looked at Logger, ready to listen to some story about how hard it was being a man with no faults like Logger, who had so many legal problems that are to blame for his house and family falling apart.
“What’re you talking about, Logger?”
The drunk set some coins on the bar top, and Bull took them. He refilled Logger’s drink, which lasted five seconds. Logger set the glass down with the failing control of a man in rage who would rather hurl the glass at the thought of what he’s got to say.
“My options are work in labor for life, or provide a kid for Peg Pik’s brothel to raise as payment for the one I sent to the eight.”
Bull looked at Logger a long time, gripping the rag he wiped the counter with as though he meant to choke the life from it. He took a breath.
“What you go and kill a girl for?” Bull asked. Bull had more than his share of bodies buried all around the city. None of them women or under sixteen, when boys are men and girls are women in Timeless Springs. Logger didn’t know, but his life was on trial and he was giving his defense.
“Damn it, man. I don’t know. I just went to the mistress house, a little drunk, on some rexes, looking to blow off some steam. My claimed has been driving me crazy, nagging to take care of the kids more like it ain’t her job to do that. I’m the one out here every day, earning a paycheck. She’s the one who gets to stay home all day. If it bothers her so much, I’ll trade.”
“Being a mother to six and on your own most of the day isn’t easy.” Bull knew this. He thought of his mother sisters and brothers, all gone. It was just him now. He’d be the period to his family’s statement, something all too common with the population winding down and one third of the city just empty houses and lots.
“Whatever man, it’s easier than working all day.”
Logger held up his empty glass and slapped more coins on the table. Bull refilled the glass, but set the coins to the side of the register instead of putting them in the till.
“So what’s your claimed have to say about this?” Bull asked.“She says she’s not having a child just so it can be raised into a mistress. That this is all my problem. Damn filthy bitch of a woman. But…” Logger took a drink and smiled and then laughed as though recalling the best joke in the city. “I told her, ‘you think you have a choice?’ I’m not working in labor and she sure as hell ain’t moving in with her mother. Not with my kids. My kids, Bull.”
Bull looked and saw the door was still unlocked. He set the bottle of spirits in front of Logger and told him have at it. Again, the gesture met with a deserving nod. Bull owed Logger this. He drank straight from the bottle, not noticing Bull locked the door and closed the curtain, turning the glass door from a window into their sick as shit world to a well-kept secret.
“I got a year to make this right or I’m going to be a slave,” Logger said. “It’s one kid, Bull. Not like it’s that hard on her, I mean, expecting women got it made in Timeless Springs, am I right? They get fresh food delivered and money just for having a kid on the way. I told her it’d be like a vacation, you know?”
Logger looked at the bottle and saw that it’s near its end. He held it up on display to Bull, behind him now.
“You gonna get me another one of these, Bull?”
Bull took the bottle and before Logger could finish saying Bull knows how to treat a man with respect, Bull drove the heavy end of the glass onto the top of Logger’s skull. Logger stumbled from his stool but held his own regaining balance faster than Bull expected, assuming Logger survived the blow, which Bull did to many men that never got up.
“You swine. You filthy…”

Logger grabbed the top of a bar stool and swung it hard and fast, four wooden legs going straight into Bull’s head. The bartender held an arm up and felt the sharp burn of impact, the legs broke at his touch and fell to splinters. Bull, having watched old films with fighters, when the city still had means to show films, held his big fists in front of his face, ready to protect himself and finish the job he started.
Copyright © 2014 by Jacob Sailor. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this sample or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.