{"id":2753,"date":"2015-01-28T01:50:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T01:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2015-01-28T01:50:40","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T01:50:40","slug":"debut-stephen-baily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/debut-stephen-baily\/","title":{"rendered":"Debut by Stephen Baily"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yawn<\/a>
Yawn by Jim Sholes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Debut<\/h1>\n

by Stephen Baily<\/p>\n

Through the open window above the tub, an outcry reaches us from the world. I sink my battleship, but it pops right back up to the surface. More shouts follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, I wonder?\u201d<\/p>\n

Scooping me from the water into a towel, my mother carries me into the living room, where, in the strong breeze from the standing fan, my father\u2019s drawers are flapping on his backside. Behind him, as he leans over the radio, my brother, in his soaked diaper, is scattering the alphabet over the carpet.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapan surrendered.\u201d
\nOf the five windows in our four rooms, only one faces the street, and he lifts me high up over its sill. Eight floors below, people are scurrying to the curbs from all points of the compass. What they\u2019re craning their heads toward I can\u2019t see, but I shrink from the drumming as it gets louder and louder. In the tall red buildings across from us, hands are waving from every window. It\u2019s snowing, though it\u2019s ninety degrees and there aren\u2019t any clouds.<\/p>\n

\u201cBring me some toilet paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

With my brother on her hip, she comes back with a roll, and he stuffs my fists with torn-off strips.<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzie, for God\u2019s sake, put him down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignoring her plea, he thrusts me out over the neighborhood, and I\u2019m moved to make my first\u2014and last\u2014public address:<\/p>\n

\u201cLadies and gentlemen, take my advice, pull down your panties and slide on the\u2014no, that\u2019s not what I wanted to say, what I wanted to say was, ladies and gentlemen, hobos and tramps! I come before you to stand behind you to tell you I can\u2019t begin to tell you what an honor it is to join you today. When I think of the infinite number of moments contained in eternity, how can I be otherwise than thrilled that the gods\u2014supposing they\u2019re shameless enough to remain in existence\u2014have chosen this particular one for my debut? Oh, it makes my heart thump louder than the Police Athletic League band! Rumpty-tump-tump-tump-tumpty! But please\u2014don\u2019t let me distract you from getting pie-eyed and groping each other over the happy conclusion of hostilities that have killed a hundred million of us, give or take twenty-five million. For my part, in the glorious years to come, I swear I\u2019ll do my best to uphold the reputation of our species and, in the meantime, on with the parade!\u201d<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Stephen Baily is the author of two novels, nine plays, and stories that have appeared in Words Paint Pictures, Thick Jam, Perspective Literary Magazine, Livid Squid, Fuck Fiction, Blue Monday Review, Hack Writers, Pavilion, Atticus Review, Squawk Back, and other journals. His novel “Markus Klyner, MD, FBI” is available as a Kindle e-book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through the open window above the tub, an outcry reaches us from the world. I sink my battleship, but it pops right back up to the surface. More shouts follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[168,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction","category-short-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753","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=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}