 |
|
|
| Read
A Short Story |
|
My
Finger's in the Light Socket and My Head's in the Oven
 |
Six
operators called in sick with the flu, two more got the heaves
before they’d sat down good, and the supervisor totaled
his new Caprice in a five-car collision on the Southwest Freeway.
Otherwise, Full Moon Friday began like any other shift.
Read more. |
Love's
Boiling Point
A
strangely assertive woman takes a cop home for dinner
The thousand
charms of Adin Carp I resisted as best I could, but when
he touched me, even that most casual of touches, I knew I
was lost. Passion is superficial, at best. From Adin, I wanted
that invasive, soul-wrenching love that bridges all differences.
Read more. |
 |
Fresh
 |
All those church windows me and Chatter broke
before he killed his mom were just pranks. I told the sheriff
who arrested us this, then I told my court-appointed attorney,
then I told the judge and jury. One and all, they shook their
heads and scowled down their noses at me, stares as cold and
hard as black ice. The deputies are in my face again for breaking
glass and murder, and this time they don’t want to hear
about me and Chatter. They’re not interested in trash
I did back then, not even the part where I helped Chatter hide
out after he stabbed the old cow twenty-six times. I’m
seventeen now, fresh from a year in county detention, and this
time I’ll be “tried as an adult, no skinnin’ by
with juvie time,” they keep saying.
Read more. |
Clothes
Make the Magic
| The trunks arrived at the theater while Elsa
was pouring her third cup of Wakeup Wallop tea.
“To Ms. Elsavere Maxine Lord,” she read on the
delivery ticket. It was from an estate executor, the estate
of “Albert and Rosalyn Tremont.”
Thrilled, dismayed, Elsa felt both, like push-pull on her
brain cells. The Tremonts were the most famous couple in Chicory,
Texas, actors who’d toured the world, leaving audiences
enchanted in town after town, country after country. Far and
wide the Tremonts were known, at least by older generations.
Any acting group would be delighted to own their personal costumes
and props.
Read more. |
 |
Ugliest
Pumpkin
 |
“This is so lame, Mom.”
“It is not lame, Mel. It’s Thanksgiving. It’s
what we do.” Coral Holden braked to avoid hitting a young
man on a bicycle jumping the green light.
Actually, it did feel lame this year. Maybe pointless was
a better word. Coral didn’t feel thankful about the pile
of unpaid bills Jared had left when he skipped town. She didn’t
feel thankful that his whole family blamed her for the breakup.
Read more. |
Just Bugs
Kelsey
Brocklyn rolled her Ford Explorer down the long, bright driveway,
into the welcome shadows of her cluttered garage, and turned
off the engine. Releasing the tension from her shoulders and
neck, she leaned back against the headrest for a moment.
Kelsey
could not recall the last time her weekly three-hour drive
home had given her such a throbbing ache from teeth to tail
bone. All that kept her going those last fifty miles were
her plans for the evening: No email. No voicemail. No supper.
Mix an icy lavender margarita, summon a movie on her DVR, and
fall asleep halfway into it.
Read more. |
 |
Making Waves
 |
"Get
out there. Bid on the darned boat," Fred X. Keefer hammered
his desk top. "Pay any amount. Be sure no one outbids
you!"
Sam Dooley, loyal bean counter, saluted his boss and scurried out of the office,
his "Yessir," hanging in the air like a piece of dry jerky.
Fred X. needed that yacht. Mildred's body was on it.
Read more. |
Poe's
Grave
July
in Baltimore. A killing heat.
It roasted Marty the minute he stepped foot outside his office. It sweated him
of hope. Two blocks down, the Greene Street bus stop shimmered like a mirage.
Marty knew he didn’t stand a chance of getting there without an alluvial
overflow of wetness dripping down his crack. And a mouthful of the grit five
o’clock traffic whipped up. Or the wince of white-hot sidewalk nuking the
bottoms of his ancient Oxfords. For a second he stood blinking in disbelief:
Marty Childs, bookkeeper. Age forty-six. Sporting creased uppers and a baggy,
summer-weight suit. Circle of hair scruffy from neglect. And a pain in his gut
that felt like a midget pounding him with a polo mallet every time he took a
breath.
Read more. |
 |
Invite the Devil In
 |
I
stare at my melted keyboard and blank monitor and the CPU
humming nonstop, and I don't dare unplug it. I'm not sure
what would happen, but it would be ugly. Somewhere early
on there might've been a bail-out point. The best thing I
could've done - and jeez, I never thought I'd hear myself
say this - was listen to Mom.
Read more. |
Spark
of Evil
Billy
Ray Jones eased the station wagon onto the highway, skirting
a pothole at the edge of the shoulder to avoid bouncing the
corpse around.
This was the third time in two years he'd hauled a body for the state prison
system. The cheap administrators had never yet provided a transport box. At the
other end, the country church that donated burial space would have a pine coffin
waiting, but that didn't help Billy Ray any now.
He could just see himself trying to explain a corpse to the highway patrol. So
far he'd never been stopped, but he kept the transfer papers tucked right up
here on the visor, in case that ever happened.
Read more. |
 |
Return
to top of page. |
| |
|
|
