{"id":12897,"date":"2023-12-11T02:49:07","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T02:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=12897"},"modified":"2023-12-11T02:49:07","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T02:49:07","slug":"the-guitar-man-and-the-pigeon-by-ben-westerham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/the-guitar-man-and-the-pigeon-by-ben-westerham\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guitar Man and the Pigeon by Ben Westerham"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12898\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?resize=640%2C360&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"The Guitar Man and the Pigeon by Ben Westerham\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?w=1600&amp;ssl=1 1600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?resize=560%2C315&amp;ssl=1 560w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/valence-1.jpg?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">The Guitar Man and the Pigeon<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">by Ben Westerham<\/p>\n<p>The guitar busker sat alone in the drizzle, chords of Molly Malone filling the damp air. A fat pigeon stood and stared at his feet, head bobbing, eyes entranced. Offerings for the day had been slim, a handful of copper and silver coins scattered across the open guitar-case. What use was the music when it didn\u2019t feed his belly, let alone provide the drink he craved. Oh well, needs must and all that. He grabbed the guitar by the neck, swung it high, then brought it down hard and fast on the unsuspecting pigeon. Dinner, at least, was now served.<\/p>\n<p>END<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p>Ben Westerham has recently let slip the chains of paid employment so he can spend ever more time writing crime, mystery and thriller stories as well as spending time reading, gardening and uncovering fascinating nuggets about his criminal ancestors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ben Westerham has recently let slip the chains of paid employment so he can spend ever more time writing crime, mystery and thriller stories as well as spending time reading, gardening and uncovering fascinating nuggets about his criminal ancestors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary","category-flash-fiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12899,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions\/12899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}