THE JOYS OF EASTER

By

Brian James Lewis

Hey! It’s Easter! A time of renewal, cleansing, and candy! Oh yeah, that’s what’s on your mind! Especially if you are a young person who’s the right age for Easter egg hunts! This is nearly as good as Halloween and you don’t even have to go knock on any doors. Every store you walk into has those fun displays of chocolate Easter bunnies that are stacked just right to catch the eyes of hopeful little guys and gals. You can’t help but smile at these cutely packaged treats and dig those names! “Happy” “The L’il Professor” “Sunny” All made of delicious and nutritious “chocolate flavored candy.” Yum!

Wait, what? Isn’t chocolate flavored candy just chocolate with a snazzy name? Right here at the department of Easter candy consumption, we like to know what we’re eating, so I did a little research. You’re welcome! Okay, so if you read the ingredients carefully, it turns out that the majority of cheap holiday chocolate is made out of stuff that pretty much amounts to, um…WAX! Fortunately, it’s food grade wax (not melted crayons) that is safe for human consumption. They color and flavor it with cocoa, press it in molds and voila! Holiday treats! In short, unless you shell out for stuff that is labelled chocolate, you’ll be consuming what amounts to chocolate flavored suppositories. Yum! Well at least constipation will not be a problem!

Easter for adults isn’t quite as exciting as it is for kids. So unless you are helping out with the Easter egg hunt this year and eating brown wax, you’ll be standing out on the lawn with Dad, Uncle Joe, and maybe Grandpa having an adult beverage and a smoke. There will be discussions of such important topics as whether or not your lawnmower will start this year. That’s one of the major springtime rituals for most home owners, regardless of gender. But for some reason men seem to talk about it more. How much analysis is required? You just yank on the starter rope and curse angrily until your arm breaks or someone points out that there isn’t any gas in the tank. If nothing else, it’s definitely a good excuse for drinking.

Other important spring time tasks are getting the grill going and nearly burning the porch down when all the grease left from last year ignites. Along with my favorite, putting out all the lawn furniture so that giant birds can crap on it. These birds are not the robins, who have the useful purpose of announcing spring. No, I’m talking about giant crows who not only disfigure lawn furniture, but also drop large pieces of half-eaten food in our yard. Without warning, a slice of pizza will plummet out of the sky and land sticky side down on the dog. That’s nice for him but often disgusting to observe. The bonus is that no cleanup is required and you get a happy dog at the end. The hard blobs of smelly white filth on the furniture make no one happy and can only be removed by renting an industrial power washer when company comes. If you are cheap, you can just reserve the worst chairs for people you don’t like very much. “Here you go, Uncle Mike! Have a seat right here! What’s that, you’re leaving? Okay then! Happy Easter!”

But, before you can get on to the high festivities of the holiday of ham, bunnies, chicks, and springtime. The re-birthing of the entire world, if you will. You have to go shopping for all the stuff required. Yep, lucky for you, you’re going to the supermarket! Damn it!

It doesn’t matter which one you walk into, because they’re all pretty much the same. Adults pushing carts grimly along while children hang onto the sides and yell navigational directions at them. This is because the adults can’t see over the huge mound of the comestibles that they’re wheeling in a wobbly old cart. “Watch out for the old guy bent over the oranges! Oops, too late!”

The old people are far from innocent though. They are the worst rammers and cart crashers out there. Mostly it’s because their brains are still at home, probably on the toilet. Meanwhile they’ve driven five miles to the store, parked the car on the sidewalk, and entered the building pushing a large shopping cart in a randomly distracted fashion. They whip around each corner on autopilot while talking loudly on their cell phones about unimportant things.

“I have a RASH on my ASS!” An older woman in front of me shouts while completely blocking the bread aisle. Well good for you, M’am! Now stop showing off and get out of the way. Just as I manage to slither around her, WHUNK! I get T-boned by an ancient old fellow who is draped over his cart like a corpse. For a moment, he just stands there not moving a muscle and I fear the worst. Then with a fierce look in my direction and a disgusted, “Huh!” He wheels away, destroying an Easter candy display that he doesn’t even see because he’s busy looking at the floor again.

To make up for the grumpy, destructive folks, there are the sorry people. They go around the store shouting, “Sorry!” in a very apologetic manner at people they aren’t even bothering. Wait, let me rephrase that. At people they weren’t bothering until they came zooming towards them briskly and yelling apologies into their startled faces. Which causes many of them to go into cardiac arrest right on the spot.
“Let’s see here…bread, milk, eggs and…”
“SORRY! SORRY! SORRY!”
“Ahhh! My heart…” Clunk!
“Sorry!”

See what I mean? Maybe they’re just sorry they didn’t hit your cart or slam you into a hard, unyielding object. Well, regardless of all these potential bumps in the road, I hope you and yours enjoy a wonderful Easter. Me? I’ll be power washing my chairs.

Over the past few years I have met some awesome writers and made some really good friends! It is an honor to be part of the Hellnotes review team as well as The Horror Review. It has also been my pleasure to feature reviews here on Damaged Skull Writer and share my successes! This blog will continue to be about great writing and poetry regardless of label, but the majority will lean in the Speculative direction. This is also a safe, no haters allowed place. We’re put on this earth to create and not waste time being obsessed with sexual orientation, skin colors, genders, body types, and choice of religion. Those are things that make the world unique. The power of the written word can overcome a lot of stuff, including disability. Thank you to everyone for trusting me with their work!

See You On The Next Page,

Brian James Lewis

Damaged Skull Writer and Reviewer

On April 19th Apex Publishing is going to release the fiery apocalyptic thriller Breaking the World by author Jerry Gordon. Things kick off deep inside the Branch Davidian Church compound in Waco, Texas during the infamous 51 day standoff between cult leader David Koresh and the FBI. While that is exciting in itself, it’s just the beginning of a wild ride into a brand new world of danger for three teenagers who are running for their lives. Be sure to stay tuned for my review of this incredible book on Hellnotes. You don’t want to miss this!

Here’s the cool surprise that I was talking about on the back cover of Jordan Anderson’s second book For A Glimpse Beyond The Terminus. This blurb by yours truly for the Horror Review is a very good description of Anderson’s writing. It is deep and continues to surprise us with the unexpected. Big thanks to Jordan Anderson for showing his appreciation of my review by including on the back cover! What an honor! I am currently working on this review and should have it on soon. Thanks for reading. Here’s hoping your weekend is a good one!

Last year I reviewed an excellent collection of short stories from Jordan Anderson seeking a “fair review.” At first, I was a bit worried. But the more I read, more impressed I was! For a first book, The Things That Grow With Us was stronger than material I’ve read by more seasoned writers. Needless to say, doing the review was a pleasure!

To celebrate the anniversary of his first book, Jordan has released his second. For A Glimpse Beyond The Terminus is even better than his debut! I’m two stories in and have a feeling that we’ve got another winner on our hands! Be sure to check back tomorrow when I reveal something cool on the back cover! Stayed tuned! 

Snapshot
by Chris Helvey
Livingston Press-University of Alabama
December 30, 2017
reviewed by Brian James Lewis

The book I want to talk about today is Snapshot which was written by a fine fella by the name of Chris Helvey. He’s an award winning writer with a good number of books out including a great collection of short stories titled Claw Hammer that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to read some real solid writing that engages your brain while dragging your heart along for the ride. Helvey writes books about the true America. This is what happens between folks who are struggling along to make ends meet and find love, or at least some kind of reason for their existence. But since this isn’t a review of Claw Hammer, let’s get back to the latest and greatest from author Chris Helvey.

Snapshot starts off in a pure, simple way that might remind you of Hemingway, Steinbeck, or Kerouac. Helvey puts you right there with Eddie Burke as he walks out of the Kentucky coalmine where he works and runs smack into Turp Lawson on his way home. They aren’t friends, nor does Eddie want things to go there. But Turp forces himself on Eddie and asks for a favor. Since it seems harmless enough and Eddie doesn’t want to be stuck up, he approves. But that’s kind of unfortunate, because it isn’t long before Eddie’s good deed flings him into a mess of the blues.

Even what might seem like a kindness trips Eddie up when he goes to Turp’s place for supper and ends up with a whole lot more than he bargained for. Seems that Marta, Turp’s attractive wife, thinks lonely, divorced Eddie needs some cheering up and before he knows it they’re operating on a clandestine basis. Meanwhile, ol’ Turp keeps leaning on him harder for support and Eddie is thinking that he must’ve walked into an outhouse head first. Things come to a head the night that the boys get to drinking. Despite Eddie’s warnings, Turp buys his shine from a questionable source and drinks way too much of it, turning a mellow drinking party into a big old mess. Things spiral wildly out of control with horrible results that leave poor Eddie holding the shitty end of a stick that he would never have grabbed in the first place, except for kindness.

I guess that I don’t want to get much deeper than that into things. This is a story that deserves to be told by its author and eaten nice and fresh like fried squirrel. What I will say is what a great book Snapshot is and one you won’t walk away from untouched. Even in what appear to be simple places, life can get complicated in a hurry. When a person changes, regardless of whether they initiated the change or not, things cannot stay the same. Eddie wrestles with that a lot and is left with 20/20 hindsight about how a man he didn’t really want to know had such an impact on his life.

Snapshot isn’t a straight-on horror novel full of monsters and such. Yet, as William Quincy Belle pointed out, what is more terrifying than our everyday existence? One only has to check out the news to see that man is capable of doing horrible things. Chris Helvey’s writing makes you think on that a little and that’s a good thing. “How do I get a copy?” You ask. I was just getting to that. You can purchase Snapshot from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell’s Books, Livingston Press, and from Chris Helvey himself. You can contact him via e-mail at adobechris@hotmail.com Let’s support small presses and writers who make a difference!