Download the Honey Gatherer

     Brian Kaufman's latest story, The Honey Gatherer, is now available as a free download.

     The Honey Gatherer is available to download here (450 kb). It is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, which you need the free Acrobat Reader to access. If you don't have it, download it from Adobe's website here.

Opening Excerpt:

     The night I met Laura, the girl who broke my heart, was also the night Leon told me he had cancer. Everything that happened later tumbled out of that night. God was setting up his Rube Goldberg machine— stacking rows of dominos, setting levers and switches, everything arranged in anticipation of a sudden whirl of motion. My memories carry the added weight of dramatic irony. I know who won, I know who lost, and I know who ended up face-down on the carpet.

     I worked as a cook then. Laura had been waiting tables at lunch for a few weeks, learning the restaurant's table system. When they introduced her to the night crew, I thought, she's a cute one. She had brown hair, and a pretty face. Her body was rock hard, I remember that. When they got to me, she held out her hand, but I had blood from the steaks all over me, and I just waved hello. She dropped her hand, and started to giggle, and when I saw that smile, I got hungry.

     I have a few pictures of her, but none of them caught the smile. (The one the crazy photographer took did, but Leon ended up with it.) A camera freezes things. Laura Beck was alive, and resisted being frozen.

Download Honey Gatherer here to read the rest of the story.