Here’s the first few paragraphs of my new story The Allocution of Bob Hayward, of which the first draft stands completed at 5250 words:

Well Judge, what you have to understand is that Shane is… was no wizard. He wasn’t a magician. Hell, he couldn’t even do card tricks. When we used to play poker inside, for smokes, he’d always let me shuffle, because he made such a mess of it. No, Shane wasn’t any kind of wizard.

Neither am I. I think.

But Shane was a mean piece of work, he was, and maybe the magic just flocked to that mean streak. Or maybe it was all as you say, and I’m plain crazy for believing what I think I saw. I don’t know, I really don’t. All I can do is tell it like it was.

Y’all are accusing me, or at least, that pretty prosecutor Miss McGovern over there is, of a lot of things. Grand larceny hoss, and aggravated cruelty to animals, and possession of an illegal material, and murder in the first degree. And I guess all of that is true, but at the same time it’s all lies, and the way in which it’s all lies seems more important to me.

Wanna read more?