Write! with Peter Hering

I had all the right hair in all the wrong places; I would have been the perfect Exhibit Number 1 for the Scopes Monkey Trial. ‘We are not all God’s children!’! I would have shouted across the courtroom over and over again while pounding my chest like my zoo-kept ancestors.

Excerpt from: ‘My chest hairs are turning grey, what now?!’
Marty L. Peterson

It began with the epilation of the thick, strong terminal hairs that were fanned across my back; the same back hair that — with its slight tinge of auburn — had always made me look like a zoo-bred orangutan.

Excerpt from: ‘My chest hairs are turning grey, what now?!’
Marty L. Peterson

There was remorse; there was sadness: When things fall apart they quickly dissolve into atoms of despair and pass through you, meticulously eliminating any hope for reconciliation along the way. I’d often known a general feeling of despair and hopelessness, but this was worse: This was like being a peasant farmer in paradise.

Excerpt from ‘Promises from Tobago’
L. Jerome

Nobody knew: That was the enticing part. But it was more likely that nobody cared to know; nobody wanted to look past what they saw or had seen to try and corroborate with what they thought they saw. It was often better to leave the psychological stones — those heavy boulders of obliterating truth — unturned. Even on Tobago.

Excerpt from: ‘Promises from Tobago’
L. Jerome

And suddenly I was so jealous of her “rah, rah, go team” life; so envious of her picnic basket full of dreams.
I curled myself into the comfort of my well-worn sofa bed, listening to the rain splash against the single-plane glass window. My two-bedroom apartment never sounded emtpier.
‘This is what Tobago must really be like,’ I whispered to myself.

Excerpt from: ‘Promises from Tobago’
L. Jerome