(Five-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) THERE IS A SAYING ABOUT the religious life: that it’s only for the broken in spirit, heart, and/or mind. That was one small reason why…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
365 Names: The Nameless One
THE NAMELESS ONE was invented by me (unless I unrememberingly wheelered it from somewhere) to express, ironically, that the whole “365 Names of God” project (and similar efforts) is doomed to fail. As Lao-tze said more than a thousand years…
Prosatio Silban and the Uninvited Guest
(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) THE RHYTHMIC RAPPING OF STEEL on wood filled Prosatio Silban’s cozy galleywagon with the sharp tang of garlic, and he marveled – not for…
20 Observations on Newspaper Reporting
ALTHOUGH THEY RELY ON THEM, few people say they actually trust the news media. (I call it “Ross’ Paradox.”) Everybody has a story. And many want to share it. Newswriting is a form of reality-creation, wherein readers trust you to…
Prosatio Silban and the Final Kindness
(Two printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) OF THE NUMBERLESS CREATURES INHABITING the Exilic Lands, none are perhaps so quaint as the lumbering buopoth – and though no two descriptions agree…
Words To Bring Back: “Cryptic”
– Definition: adj. Having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure – Used in a sentence: The president’s* speeches are somewhat cryptic to those who don’t share his gestalt, and altogether not for those who do. – Why: What with…
Soul Food (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Seven printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.) PROSATIO SILBAN’S FACE WAS THE picture of dispassionate interest, but his heart gave a familiar tug of weary resignation. This is what comes of…
The road to a friend’s house is never long.”
— Dave Chavoya
Prosatio Silban and the Iron Dray-Beast
(Five-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) ALTHOUGH PROSATIO SILBAN’S COUNTRYMEN WERE were wary of most forms of magik – spells, illusions, conjurations, astral mucking-about – their phobia didn’t quite extend to…
First Graf: Torah
(BE HONEST — YOU MUST HAVE known I’d get around to this one eventually, right?) I make no rigid claims of authenticity, accuracy, or authorship for this work. As far as I’m concerned, this is “simply” a collection of ancient…
Love Famine (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Five-and-a-half printed pages, and a bit ribald. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) THE KEEP’S NAME WAS “CASTLE Cautroffs,” after an ancestor of its then-current occupant. But Prosatio Silban was to remember it as…
Chopped Roots (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Eight printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) WHETHER IT WAS THROUGH A dream or a vision, Prosatio Silban knew one thing with absolute certitude – his beloved mentor was dead. He arose…