• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Exterminating Angel Press

Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

  • Home.
  • Our Books.
  • About Us.
    • What EAP’s About.
    • Why Exterminating Angel?
    • Becoming Part of the EAP Community.
    • EAP’s Poetry Editor Speaks!
    • Contributors.
    • EAP Press.
  • EAP: The Magazine.
    • EAP: The Magazine Archive
  • Tod Blog.
  • Jam Today.
  • Contact Us.
  • Cart.

Second Thoughts.

December 31, 2018 by Exangel

by Charles Holdefer.

When the doorbell rang, Wayne stopped buffing and polishing and went to answer.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“I believe you know why I’m here.”

“Are you sure it’s necessary?”

“Honey, who is it?” Courtney called from the kitchen.

Wayne yelled over his shoulder. “It’s Nancy Pelosi. She’s come to take our guns.” He turned back to the Minority Leader. “I guess I’d better let you in. But I’m not happy about this.”

“I won’t be long.”

Wayne’s Ruger Redhawk lay on the coffee table, gleaming next to the summer issue of House Beautiful.

“Well, we can start with that one.”

Pelosi snapped open a pillow case.

“What did you say?” Courtney asked. She entered the room with a fresh mug of coffee. “Oh…I see.”

Pelosi eyed the rifle above the fireplace.

“That was grandpa’s .22,” Wayne explained. “His dad gave it to him when he was twelve years old. Used it for squirrels, mainly, and to develop his aim. He gave it to my dad, who later gave it to me. I’ve been saving it for my grandchildren. That gun has been in the family since the nineteenth century.”

The Congresswoman looked around. “Dianne!” she called. “Got another one for you.”

Senator Feinstein came rattling into the living room with a little red wagon.

“Huh? What?”

Pelosi pointed.

“Right, Nance. I’m on it.”

Feinstein trotted round the couch and reached above the fireplace and began to grapple with the gun.

“You got anything else for me?” Pelosi asked. “Shotguns? Semi-automatics? Hollow-point bullets and armor-piercing cartridges? Bump stocks? We sure appreciate it when citizens hand them in, I want you to know that.”

“Geez,” Feinstein puffed. “What’s with this thing?”

“Just a sec.” Wayne moved to help her. “It tends to stick.”

Courtney excused herself and soon returned with a snub-nosed revolver.

“Here’s our .357 from the night stand.” Pelosi opened her pillow case. Next Courtney retrieved her purse and, after rooting around, came up with a tiny nickel-plated Beretta 9000. “This was my Christmas present.” She dropped it in, too.

“Any long guns?” Pelosi pursued.

“Those are locked up in the basement,” said Wayne. “We’re responsible owners.”

“Could you get them, please?”

Feinstein lay the .22 rifle to rest in her wagon and smiled in satisfaction as they listened to Wayne pound down the basement steps; presently they heard him slowly pounding his way back up. He arrived with his arms laden. “There are only these four. The kids took the others when they went to college.”

The guns tumbled into the wagon.

“Thank you,” said Pelosi. “We won’t trouble you anymore.” She twisted the top of the pillow case but before she knotted it, she hesitated, looking back and forth between Wayne and Courtney. “Listen. You sure you’re not forgetting any? Give it a think.”

Wayne and Courtney were silent at first. Eventually Wayne blurted, “Oh, my goodness! Now that you mention it, there is one in the kitchen. Doggone!” Courtney sighed as he left them and moments later he returned with a box of cornflakes. He removed a .45 AMT Hardballer.

“Well well,” said Feinstein. “That’s some prize in your cereal!”

“If you want to know the truth,” said Courtney, “we hid it there in anticipation of a day when we might have to take our country back. But never mind. It’s too late now.”

The Hardballer dropped into the pillow case.

“Don’t worry, folks,” Pelosi said. “It’ll be all right.” She slung the bag over her shoulder. “Ho ho ho!”

The Congresswoman and Senator walked out the front door, and Wayne and Courtney fell into each other’s arms, their hearts beating fast as they listened to the squeak of wagon wheels growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

“I guess we always knew this would happen,” she said.

“It’s not our fault,” he said.

He pulled down the blinds and returned to her on the couch. For several minutes, they faced the windows in silence. What now? What was left? A tightness welled up in Wayne’s chest, and suddenly he clenched his fists and exclaimed, “I feel so infringed!”

Sobs shook him, and though Courtney reached out, she could not make him stop.

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Winter 2019: Triggers.

Primary Sidebar

Cart.

Check Out Our Magazine.

In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

Copyright © 2025 · Exterminating Angel Press · Designed by Ashland Websites