With the Passover and Easter holidays imminent, The Stoneslide Corrective moves through the world with eyes seeking spiritual wonder. It makes us ask questions, like the following: Why does the church down the street still have a nativity scene out front? Since someone stole the baby Jesus, and there’s just a rumpled blanket in the middle of the scene, what are the angels worshipping?
by Sean McCleary
A map can save your life. Say you’re lost midway in the gulf between two known tracks, miles of wilderness around you on all sides. You spot a landmark, you pull out your map and compass, and you can make a bee line for salvation.
My friend Jim has hiked and skied all through the Bridger, Crazy, Madison, and Gallatin ranges—often venturing where people may or may not have ever stepped before—and yet it was a map of his wife that saved him. Let me explain. [Read more…]
ME: For my birthday this year, will you laugh at one of my jokes?
WIFE: [Laughing.] Does that count?
The most dangerous factor in highway driving is relative velocity. It’s not speed that kills. It’s the difference in speed between you and the object you hit or that hits you. Say you bump your fender against a car traveling at nearly the same speed in the same direction … you won’t be hurt at all. When you spin out and collide with a stationary oak, that’s what hurts.
So, now imagine that you’re traveling along the highway at something near the mean speed for a major interstate, about 80 miles per hour. Suddenly, there’s a pack of cars in front of you blocking all lanes, moving 15 or 20 miles per hour slower than you. You see the problem.
As you spot this bunch of cars, you hit your brakes hard. What happens to the person behind you, who had been traveling at the same speed as you? You eventually get to the front of the pack, and you see that the whole clog has been caused by a highway patrol officer or sheriff’s deputy toodling along at 65.
We propose a solution. [Read more…]
A gentle reader has pointed out a serious omission in our recent story, “Colloquium Defines What Is Human.” Given that it is now established that humans are distinguished within the animal kingdom by adept use of acronyms and initialisms, we have failed to fully exercise our humanity by not applying this distinctively human mode of thought to the naming of our own species. This reader, further, provided the means to right this historic wrong, right here on The Stoneslide Corrective. Henceforth, humanity shall be referred to as ACES (acronym creating and employing species).
Thank you to our astute reader.
We hope that all readers will benefit from this important step for ACES. We believe that the more we use this elevated function, the further we ascend away from all that is coarse and brutish, as if walking up into the sky on a staircase of light and cloud—each step a clever, compact combination of letters. If you join us, you may feel that your mind’s rational functions move more freely, lubricated by the slick efficiency of acronym use. The animal passions, the gross craving for food, sensation, procreation, will subside. In other words, we are exercising the better angels of our natures. [Read more…]
by Kerry McArdle Lee
My husband pointed them out. “She came down to the beach on a wheelchair,” he said, “and now the man is carrying her piggyback.” I looked up from my book.
How sweet, I thought. They were probably a retired couple, together for most of their lives. They were probably tourists and this trip to Maui was a big deal for them, considering it was not easy for her to get around. Of course she wanted to feel the water. But what did I know, a casual observer. Maybe they lived on the island, or they came here often and had a timeshare.
The man was walking to the water, his companion easily hanging on to his neck. Straw hat and floral bathing suit, she looked good, but his load was not a light one.
Would my newlywed husband do this for me someday, I pondered. [Read more…]
Our first print edition, The Stoneslide Corrective No. 1, is a reading experience that can make your head spin, being constituted of fiction that’s more solid than reality, humor masquerading as somber reflection, and truth lazing about gussied up like a dandy. It includes the work of great writers and visual artists.
Read More...“Not counting the reception after the funeral, this was Juliet’s first party as a widow.”
Read More...A thrilling thriller that thrills thrill-loving thrill seekers. Acclaimed by a statistically significant percentage of readers.
Read More...The Stoneslide Story Contest
First prize: $3,000 + publication
Entry fee: $10
The Stoneslide Corrective No. 1
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