So, the Big Red Car is a writer, published no less. As a writer, I attend writers’ groups in which you read others work, besmirch them with red ink, write indecipherable comments, drink extra large lattes, and your work gets read and savaged.

Haha, it doesn’t get savaged. Sometimes, it just sucks. Sorry.

But, sometimes, some little piece will be written with some standards or you do a little exercise.

Feedlots, wherein cows are fattened for market, are a nasty piece of business. Do not hang out down wind from a feedlot. When I think of Lubbock, I think of feedlots and a westerly wind. Ugh! The Feed Lot is a story of war, lost youth, the stench of Vietnam, a feedlot, and Lubbock.

One such exercise was: “Write 1200 words in which sorrow or a sense of loss, and the sense of smell are intertwined in a short story.” It is hard as Hell to write a short story, flash fiction, that damn short.

Thereafter, the Big Red Car rose to the challenge and wrote the following little piece: The Feed Lot.

The Feed Lot

The Feed Lot is a story about a young man home from the war whose neighbor and buddy was killed. [Note: There is a reason why the story is called “The Feed Lot” rather than “The Feedlot.” You will never figure it out. I will not tell you.]

The story intertwines the sense of smell in Vietnam and the Lubbock feedlot which are the two scenes for the story with the sorrow of the loss of the protagonists friend.

The story was selected for publication. Some editor will mash it and make it better, but here it is anyway.

Let me know how you like it.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Something smells, y’all!