Liars' League

Elder Leah by Hunter Liguore

Sep 11 Elder Leah

 Read by Carrie Cohen

Through the white bars I have a view of the hallway. If I angle my head just so, with my head pressed on the glass, I can see into the end bedroom, a junk room that Sonny uses for storage or for hiding his illegal locobis.

I don’t call out any more, nor ask when I’ll be let out. I don’t argue when he forgets to feed me, or let me out to do my business. I’ve learned to make do, like I have my whole life, all seventy-eight years of it. I just tell myself it’s like living in the Depression again. I ration my meals, and hoard saltines and sardines under the bed where no one will look.

So Fast and So Far by Chas Warren

Sep 11 So Fast and So Far

 Read by Will Goodhand

Happy was happy only if always in misery. That wasn’t the way that he had planned his life; he had enjoyed pleasure, once, before that afternoon in the cottage with Mildred. Before that afternoon in the cottage in Lowestoft, when Mildred had coyly said to him: “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours."

Product Placement by Brindley Hallam Dennis

Sep 11 Product Placement

 Read by Louisa Gummer

There’s always a sense of oppression that overwhelms me when I cross the frontier. It’s like putting on a stiff, uncomfortable coat, stepping across that line. When I fly in it’s quite different. There is no line in the sky. There is no border post on this side or that; the one filled with bored bemused young men who think you must be a fool, or wicked, for wanting to go there in the first place; the other populated by frightened soldiers who react to every verbal pleasantry as if it were a trap laid to catch them by some agent of the state.

Roadworks by Simon Jones

Sep 11 Roadworks

 Read by Lee Peck

"Bollocks," said Trogg.

"Sorry," said Kevin.

Mr Roberts sighed. "Come on lad, one more go then we'll give it a rest." 

"Blue is water, yellow is … gas, black is telephone – NO – black is electricity, all the others are telecommunications." 

Mr Roberts looked at him expectantly. Trogg was about to swear again: the pressure was on.

"… APART from red! Yes, red is – high voltage. Sorry. Sorry."

Redeployment by Phil Klay

 Sep 11 Redeployment

Read by Steve Wedd

We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose and we called it ‘Operation Scooby’. I’m a dog person, so I thought about that a lot.

First time was instinct. I hear O’Leary go, ‘Jesus,’ and there’s a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he’d lap up water from a bowl. It wasn’t American blood, but still, there’s that dog, lapping it up. And that’s the last straw, I guess, and then it’s open season on dogs.

 

 

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Redeployment by Phil Klay was read by Steve Wedd at the Liars’ League Shock & Awe event on Tuesday 13th September 2011, at the Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London.

Phil Klay is a veteran of the US Marine Corps and served in Iraq. His essay Death and Memory was featured in the New York Times. This is his first published piece, and the full text of the story appears in Granta 116: Ten Years Later – visit www.granta.com to read more or buy the issue.

Washing the Dead by Dean Kisling

 

Sep 11 Washing the Dead

Read by James McNeill

Farook was afraid. He had doubts that any man could speak for God. He had prayed for guidance and Allah had filled his mind with questions instead of answers. He was afraid of doing something horribly wrong.

He was not afraid to die. There was no one left who depended on him. No wife or child or parent, not even a goat with young of its own. No one who would miss him. No one who would grieve. All gone.