Yesteryear Fiction

Men Like Trees, Falling
By Troy Manning


Standing naked without so much as a fig leaf, the trees were furious with Adam that first fall. It wasn’t as though there weren’t already seasons; was it a fixation with colors that inspired this man and that shameless woman to demand, through disobedience, the suffocation of their chlorophyll each year? How they wished they could return the favor, stopping the circulation of fluids in their bodies. They would watch rapt as their pigmentation went white, and their hair scenically changed color, falling out until springtime.

The rocks that lay dreaming beneath this deciduous discourse awoke and cried out, “Yes, yes! If we could only get only get our hands on those people, the things we would do!”

The less barren bushes were yet in accord, “We would cultivate the soil of those creatures of dust, though they yield bacteria and parasites in the process!”

At this the trees clapped, startling some resting ravens. “I would gladly suffer pain in leaf-bearing for such a turning of tables,” said one of them.

“Tables hewn from flesh and bone, think of it!” exclaimed a second tree.

The ravens grew fearful and flew off as the bitter winds whipped the branches into a raucous clamor.

Eve emerged from the cave sensing much was amiss in the cool of the day. Adam trailed, pale-faced, behind her into the teeth of nature’s rage. She turned to face him. “You’d better let me handle this, Honey,” said Eve, buttoning her leather jacket. “They seem to think this is all your fault.”


- - -
Troy Manning is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has recently been taking literature classes at Cal State University, San Marcos where his stories have been published in the creative writing program's Cat Ate My Chapbook, Fierce Notes 1 & 2, and the Spring & Fall, 2010 issues of Oh Cat

The Lizard of Uz
By Troy Manning


After milennia of laying low beneath an unfrequented levee near the Sea of Galilee, Levi grew restless and decided to relocate to downtown Tel Aviv.

If leviathans wore watches, which they don’t, he wouldn’t have chosen Friday rush hour, which he did, to make his move. He was about the size of some of the bigger rigs so he fit rather snugly into a lane but, looking rather different from them, he drew many stares.

Since Levi was shy, he tried hard not to impede the flow of traffic and thereby invite unnecessary honking. But as much as it pained him to do so, he also had a voracious appetite and therefore ate a Mustang and a Hummer.

One of the occupants of the Mustang who escaped dialed for help and explained the dangerous situation on the freeway. The coastal patrol was contacted, who, in turn, sent out a helicopter.

A man leaning out from the helicopter tried to fill Levi’s skin with harpoons and his head with lead, but his firmly cast and immovable folds of flesh protected him. But since that stirred him up, out of his mouth went flaming torches, and out of his nostrils came forth smoke.

The man in the helicopter then called the fire department. As traffic was at a near standstill, they were able to drive a truck near the side of the freeway where Levi sat with all the vehicles and a behemoth or two. A fireman got into a crane with a hose and tried to put out flames that now leapt from a Lexus to a Jeep Laredo.

While Leviathan possessed exceptional weaponry, his eyes weren’t so good and he took a liking to the crane.

And since the crane’s eyes weren’t any better, it liked him too. Though the fireman knew his crane well enough to know this couldn’t possibly be true love, he could see he was at risk of being considered an unwanted third party and began to climb down.

Because of the crane’s heightened sensitivity, the fireman’s movements were tickling its neck and it began to laugh.

Also feeling emotionally vulnerable, Levi, who due to his impaired vision didn’t see the man descending its neck, assumed the crane was laughing at him. The cars around him were now starting to move again, and those behind Levi began to honk.

The crane’s cruel cackling in concert with the road rage mounting around him proved too much music for two ears to take.

After flooding the freeway with tears, Levi swam past the surfacing commuters, too heartsick to consume a one. He swam until he reached the Dead Sea where lay an undiscovered scroll containing a targum of Job.

Levi rolled himself tightly inside it and there claimed promise after promise to prevent his worrying about the pitiless future of the world.


- - -
Troy Manning is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has recently been taking literature classes at Cal State University, San Marcos where his stories "Edgar's Telegram" and "Head Knowledge" have been published in the creative writing program's Cat Ate My Chapbook and the Spring 2010 issue of Oh, Cat!