Straight out of high school Mick's uncle landed Mick and me second-shift jobs at a textile factory. I asked Mick what the company manufactured. Gigantic rolls of something, he said. From three until
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Short Fiction
Short Fiction
Seamless Transition
In front of him, for nearly every minute he was awake, there was a screen.
He tried to recall a time when it wasn't this way. He couldn't, so he watched old movies to try to remember.
"Yeah ... [+]
He tried to recall a time when it wasn't this way. He couldn't, so he watched old movies to try to remember.
"Yeah ... [+]
Short Fiction
Super Troopers
On the days I visited the care center, I'd walk past this used bookshop on a quiet sidestreet. There were these four books in the shop window that always caught my eye. Other books would come and go
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Short Fiction
The Sword Swallower Cuts Their Tongue While Saying Goodbye
The weather was good today, you answer whenever I ask how are you, how was your day. I don't know when we stopped talking about what mattered the most because you won't tell me. I ask are you
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Short Fiction
Dallas Fireflies
It began at a sports bar, the kind of place the realtor would call "happy-go-lucky." In other words, if your barstool wasn't sticky, assume it had just been swabbed clean by CSI. There was graffiti
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Short Fiction
Absolution
It was real cold that night, not just Miami cold, and it was late. I'd had to wait until the girls were asleep to go out into the pre-Christmas lunacy of the mall because my wife and I were keeping
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Short Fiction
In the Name of Love...or Hate
The name on the chart, Winnaker, tightened my throat. Funny how, decades later, a word can evoke a memory that evokes a physical response. It's a good thing the evil woman's name hadn't been Smith
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Short Fiction
A Happy Color
Jake lay in the darkness, the sun creeping under the shade...thinking why should he get out of bed. He had no place to go, no one to see and nobody would be coming to visit. He probably wouldn't
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Short Fiction
Out of Reach
He was reaching for the top shelf then stopped. He moved his eyes to the next, lower shelf down and chose a jar. His hair was sheet white and his body frame resembled my father, tall and heavy set
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Short Fiction
Slice of Life
1 min
Paper and Ink
She didn't think herself a racist. She'd had black school friends, worked with black women at the restaurant, and watched Oprah daily.
But when her seven-year-old, white daughter brought home a ... [+]
But when her seven-year-old, white daughter brought home a ... [+]
Short Fiction
Holiday Fling
I was licking salt from the rim of my glass when Asli told me that elderly pelicans are often blind. She claimed that the force generated from smacking the water during a dive (and the fact that
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Short Fiction
Man on the Doorstep
There was a man on the doorstep, all leatherette shoes and easy iron trousers. When I say doorstep I mean the pavement between the threshold and the hazard lines of a busy junction.
His head, too ... [+]
His head, too ... [+]
Short Fiction
Human Song
We pull off at the side of the highway in Somewhere, Maine looking to sing to the snails. There's a deep shoulder of gravel here, so we assume it to be a parking lot. The sky and the water and the
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Short Fiction
The Intersection of Humanity and Insanity
The stoplight on the corner had been broken for weeks. Westway Avenue was yellow and green at the same time, while Cherry Lane was forever red. Mabel knew this. Mom and Dad called it "the
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Short Fiction
Guilty Treasure
It's a sunny Sunday afternoon —celebratory day: the sun hadn't visited your city's sky in ages— and you're out in the flea market. Browsing the offerings among the throng of people: old things, new
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Short Fiction
The Brighter Light
I was chasing my little brother through the park at dusk. The whole park was filled with restless families waiting for the fireworks to start. My brother halted in his grass-stained diaper. "God
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Short Fiction
Busy Bodies
It was a wonder the neighbors didn't complain. And I know it's irrational, maybe even paranoid, but I imagined the old guy upstairs must have heard me crying lately and was mocking my
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Short Fiction
The Big Curve
The last time I saw my father he was wearing a toupee that looked like a year's worth of dryer lint, a worn-out Carolina t-shirt, the blue almost white now, green golfing shorts, and penny loafers
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