Ted_Freud's Drawing Room_Snow Globes and Other Birthday Surprises_The Midnight Swimmers
Catalog Guide:
Ted
Cathleen McNamara Callahan bcallah@optonline.net 631-804-2348 Prompt: Someone with An Unreliable MemoryTed Ted had half-lost his once brilliant memory when we first met. His daughter Ann, who I knew from local tennis, had told me she was putting her dad in an assisted living home. He had been diagnosed with dementia. Upset at having just started a new job that didn’t give her flexible hours, Ann wasn’t sure how she was going to juggle everything. “I’d be happy to visit your dad once a week,” I volunteered. My own elderly father had just left for Florida for his six-months in the sun and...
Freud's Drawing Room
The frail-framed man lifted his legs and rested his back on the fainting couch. He folded his hands over his chest and sighed. The ceiling above was a spatter of blue and black. Its intricate pattern calmed his mind. Squinting to see the details through his round, wire-rimmed glasses proved to be a strain. He closed his eyes to relieve them. The faint smell of the cigar he had just snuffed out swirled about his head.“Tell me of your childhood, Sigmund.”Freud was surprised to hear the voice of his former colleague, Josef Breuer, but, he was always ready with an answer.“Well, my father was the s...
Snow Globes and Other Birthday Surprises
“I remember the first time I was given a birthday present that wasn’t a toy,” Sergeant Plundell said. “I had turned twelve, and my father gave me a watch. I was confused, because I had wanted a new bicycle, and he told me that there was going to come a time where I would appreciate getting things I actually needed as gifts.”The middle of May brought beautiful weather, along with the young soldier’s birthday. A whole twenty-six years old that day, and spending it in a prisoner-of-war camp in southern Germany. He had been showered with gifts and shouts of “Happy birthday!” from just about everyo...
The Midnight Swimmers
It was midafternoon when the local police patrol found me shivering in my swimwear on the shoreline. My weary carcass was covered with abrasions; I had dried blood matted in my hair and fingers wrinkled like anaemic prunes. “He looks rougher than road kill,” the first officer joked, wrapping a heat reflective blanwww.onedoor.ccket around me, as if he was covering burnt barbecue scraps in tinfoil.The second officer offers me a plastic bottle. “This’ll help you, sir.”“No, it’s too late...” I whisper.“Suit yourself, sir,” he says, “I was—-““She was with me last night...”“Who was with you?” he asks, straining t...