{"id":27856,"date":"2007-02-01T16:37:27","date_gmt":"2007-02-01T16:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=27856"},"modified":"2013-09-10T16:39:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T15:39:43","slug":"ian-mccormick-short-story-competition-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=27856","title":{"rendered":"Ian McCormick &#8211; Short Story Competition 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Sweet Tea for Micha<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe thought it would all be different, back then,\u201d the older man offered. \u201cBack then we mixed it with lead. Can still smell it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How old? Piotr didn\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s in me lungs now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Piotr whistled at his work. Songs from the old country. When Piotr whistled Micha danced, vodka bit his lips, the aroma of sweet tea made him giddy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome far fer yer work, then?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Poland. Micha would come from Poland when Piotr had saved enough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMakes yer hay when yer sun\u2019s ashinin\u2019, heh?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Piotr would save enough before the rain came and the work dried up. Enough to tide his family over, with sweet tea for Micha and milk for little <i>dzieci<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe drank milk of a mornin\u2019 back then. Keep the fumes from yer mouth\u201d the older man remembered. \u201cAnd ale after, just enough to kill the taste, you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The older man smiled till his chest caught and tore his face. Winter made it worse. Damp filled his lungs on Hastings\u2019 hills. And he could still remember how it used to be, and how it could have been, before Piotr came. Before the poison thinned his blood.<\/p>\n<p>Now Piotr painted the town.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cS\u2019pose you\u2019d like to go back one day. Poland. Home I mean. I was like you once. Never meant to stay but I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He coughed and spat.<\/p>\n<p>Piotr rested down his brush. One foot on the ladder now, you say, he thought. It would all be different soon. Then Micha would come.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sweet Tea for Micha \u201cWe thought it would all be different, back then,\u201d the older man offered. \u201cBack then we mixed it with lead. Can still smell it.\u201d How old? Piotr didn\u2019t hear. \u201cIt\u2019s in me lungs now.\u201d Piotr whistled at&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=27856\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[153],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27856"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27857,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27856\/revisions\/27857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}