The West Old & New Vol. III Issue II February 2014 | Page 19

An eclectic collection of short stories written over the period
of twenty years.

Excerpt from “Another Person’s Shoes”
Delbert Alexander Theiser could vaguely remember enjoying the winter’s night with a glass of brandy, in front of the fire place listening to classical music, the sound covering the high pitched fever of the rapid fire tunes
from the kid’s gaming machines in the family room below. His lovely wife
of twenty odd years, Myrna, was sitting across from him with a book of
word puzzles, a cup of hot tea on the table beside her and her thin blonde
hair already in curlers, the edges of a heavy terry robe open and tucked
around gray sweat pants. He remembered wondering how long it had been
since he’d seen her in anything even remotely sexy, and he remembered
crawling between the flannel sheets of the large King size bed after looking
out the window into a light snow falling over the dense forest that hid his
rambling ranch house from the neighbors. And that was the last thing he
remembered before falling into the bliss of sleep.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/291039

He woke to a buzzing sound, the soft purr of flimsy wings hovering
near an ear that brought the instinctive slap of a hand. Confused he sat up.
His body was smaller, thin and undernourished, with skin the color of coffee
before you add the cream. He choked as he swallowed, the unfamiliar limbs
reaching out to feel along thin arms. He suddenly was viewing slender legs
lying across dirty sheets that smelled unwashed. He had endured a few nightmares in the spread of his fifty some years but this one was unequaled in
detail. The bed was ramshackle and held together by tied rope and a window
lay open, the flies and mosquitoes passing in and out of the room like it was
Grand Central Station.
The West Old & New Page 19