A Brother’s Love – J. J. Steinfeld – 3650 words (General / Literary)
A man is haunted by the 35-year institutionalization of his older brother.
A Brother’s Love
In the hodgepodge that passes for my life, there has been one constant: my love for my older brother, Barton. Through my marriage and divorce, through the death of my father and my mother’s hasty remarriage, through my numerous “career” changes, through the dissatisfaction and restlessness and loneliness that paint my life, there has been Barton. There’s no doubt in my boozed-up mind that I would have let go a long time ago, and not minded my drowning one bit, if it wasn’t for Barton. I stay in this city, live alone in a small apartment, because I couldn’t bear to be far from my brother.
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The Great Writer’s Final Wish – J. J. Steinfeld – 3700 words (General / Literary)
The struggling writer protégé of a dying successful writer is asked to carry out his final request: bring him a prostitute with intelligent eyes and wearing black silky stockings.
The Great Writer’s Final Wish
The Great Writer, who was completely bedridden now, had already lived several months longer than the most optimistic prognosis of the doctors. He lay in the upstairs study where a bed had been placed, so he could be close to his huge book collection and the desk upon which he wrote. I had also known him in earlier days, when it seemed he was endlessly holding convivial court and I used to wonder when he had the time to write his long novels, for he always wrote long books. For him 300 pages was short. Yet for all his outward reckless living, he was a disciplined and dedicated writer, a person who would allow nothing to interfere with his strong literary vision.
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The True Vocation of Sandy Brylirn – J. J. Steinfeld – 5000 words (General / Literary)
A young man recounts from prison the chaotic events in his life that led to his imprisonment.
The True Vocation of Sandy Brylirn
My father in his quest for respectability named me Alexander Sebastian Brylirn. By the time I was seven I had changed my name to Sandy and woe to anyone who persisted in calling me Alexander or Sebastian. The wobbly course of my life has been an effort to undo what my father has done or preordained for me. It seems that the one unbroken thread in my life, from the lavish surroundings of growing up in the Rosedale section of Toronto to my currently less than lavish quarters in Kingston, Ontario, as 1988 winds down, has been the battle against my father. Not that I’m objective, but I do think I’ve finally won.
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