SHORT STORIES

What I heard in my head was William De Vaughn’s “Be Thankful for What You’ve Got.” There wasn’t a diamond in the back. What was actually playing was a loop of the same five rap songs that apparently our driver picked to put him in El Capo/Pimpin’ mode. I could make some under the table paper, let the driver. You …

Come in! came a voice. Hurley went in and confronted a bald well-built man in a wife beater undershirt with an electric guitar strapped on, playing scales slowly with no amplifier to the tick tock of a tall red metronome. He didn’t stop when he saw Hurley. He just nodded What do you need? I need your name. The ticking …

The sun was blazing green hues, the earth was sprouting blood like dust. The wind was icy and heavy- almost suffocating. Sunburnt twisted limbs dug. They fissured the serum of earth with violence and tickled the tarnished soil with their sickles and spades. Each brutal sweat evaporated into miasma. The wailing chill swallowed the filth, the trauma. Violence sniffled into …

“My planet sweet on a silver salver,” she said. “What?” he asked. “Dana, that makes no sense, none.” “What doesn’t?” Dana asked. “It’s a song lyric, Echo and the Bunnymen.” “Oh,” he said. “I don’t know them.” “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “No,” he said. “I suppose not.” “Besides, I came out here to have a break, I didn’t want …

When I was seven years old, my father dragged me onto one of those swan pedal boats they used to have at the beach. It was so hot the seatbelt buckle burned my fingers every time I touched it. Staring at the water, I wished I knew how to swim so I could jump right in. While Dad was peddling, …

Denzel couldn’t conceive of anything but jail time in his future. Even if his trial was completed before he turned eighteen, he might be sentenced as an adult despite the fact he hadn’t cause Zoe’s death. They had been skimming rocks across Kinzua Lake. Denzel had proposed a fishing date, figuring they’d find a spot along the twenty plus mile …

with apologies to Jonathan Swift The other day I was talking to a neighbor who said he found a way to help the poor and improve our environment simultaneously. It’s no secret, he said, that we have a dire food shortage among the chronically poor. It’s also no secret, he pointed out, many of our cities are overrun with feral …

Never judge a book by its cover. I learned this from a small incident that would almost disappear into the shadows of history, were it not for the power of memory that can’t help wanting to retrieve it, and others like it, and, too often, does. I was a handsome guitarist in a late-teens, 20’s and 30’s bar called the …

I was meditating on being grateful for my reliable truck when I transformed into an angry white man directing a fear struck Mexican to pull over. I could see him wondering if his brown ass was gonna be kicked by a Trump supporter. While approaching the construction vehicle, I noticed the load was held by one strap and glanced at …

What sparked the Big Bang? Should we give a dang how the experts debate as to what might predate it or seemed to exist? Speaking for myself, I cannot resist a fantasy spree of drifting away in reveries vast about our fabulous, fathomless past. Utterness whereabouts always were there, and singularities melt in thin air, when we consider an alternate …

Rubber tires don’t stick to asphalt in August as boys stick to bragging while drinking. Longnecks and short stories in a shuttlebus jammed on a Texas highway nowhere near wide enough. “Don’t say anything about what we’re talking about, we’re different. We just needed to get out of high school and grow.” I assure groomsmen and their groom I’m as …

She sat like a statue on a charpoy, staring vacuously in the space. A plate with lentil curry and bread was lying beside her but she seemed to have no appetite. She was a middle-aged woman with attractive features but a forlorn look on her swarthy face, her hair unkempt and dusty. She has not changed clothes for five days. …

Freddie and Fern were an old couple, a very old couple if truth be told, but on the matter of age, the truth seldom surfaced. Their kids were grown and gone and had families of their own. All of them lived in different cities and two of them had even asked their parents to sell the house and buy a …

In the early bright of this damned yet blessed universe, the sweet taste of white madness numbs my tongue and cigarette smoke inhaled fills my lungs. At the foot of the bed, that chick’s panties lay over my feet, while sheets are leaking off the bed all over the floor. It goes that way, doesn’t it? We slept with an …

The marriage was over. Pete realized the damage was irreparable when Julie, in a manic episode, disappeared without warning and returned three days later with a twelve-hundred-dollar puppy she morbidly named Kitty Genovese. Having been replaced emotionally and physically, Pete took over the room of his twelve-year-old son Elliott, who was then expatriated to the couch. Three days later a …

I’d been walking around the east side in circles. I felt sluggish and in pain. I had to go somewhere. I had to eat. Like mother says, “a hungry man is an angry man.” I decided I would stop off at Piano’s for their happy hour lunch special. Burger and a salad for five bucks. Can’t beat it. Where was …

Ever since I was a zygote, my father told me that Santa wasn’t real. I’d unwrap my presents on Christmas and afterwards he’d show me all of the receipts and tell me that they didn’t come from the North Pole but from KMart. He’d tell me it would be physically impossible to live on the North Pole unless you’re a …

The day of the fire, Jasper called some guy a douchebag in the drive thru right before dumping a tray of milkshakes in the backseat of said douchebag’s Camaro. Mr. Bowdon had a conniption. His face turned red and that one vein in his forehead started bulging and throbbing like it was about to explode. He screamed, That’s the last …

Or rather, I suppose I shall tell you now. You see, Bent was part of a British expedition expect’d to go around the horn of Africa, but three weeks after sailing out of Tenerife, the crew discover’d that a strange kind of mold was growing inside a majority of their water barrels, making the water undrinkable. They had to make …

Chevy stepside rust fades when Texas horizons distort from blue to grey, promising only the crawl of darkness. Stark against crepuscular atmosphere slants a white house filthy from foundation to deteriorated shingles. The frame sags into dry Texas soil. Ancient worms and creation’s bones partially devour what’s inside, memories of no one who returns here, hands in pockets hoping to …

Harvest Road took women and no one was bothered. From God’s eye and Internet maps it was easy to discover the street but miss sidewalk cracks where dark things with wet skin made night sounds, piles of departed and disfigured pets found under lost animal posters, and ghostly annual October Klansmen hanging in mesquite trees. Karen absorbed all this on …

(excerpt from the short story “Immortal”) Excuse Me Miss, can I ask you a question? ••• Oh, no ma’am, I’m not trying to sell you anything ••• No, no it’s not like that. I just want to ask you something if you would be so kind as to indulge an old man for a little while ••• Well, what could …


I remember one outstanding summer day. Not very hot, with occasional warm rain, but also with a lot of sunshine when you can sit with your buddies in the yard, in the shade, and drink vodka. Perfect. 

The day before I had drunk with my wife all night long and in the morning, she, as usual, went to look for …

I’m crawling up the walls. I’m howling at the moon. I’m drilling holes in the floorboards. I’m eating butter straight from the dish with my fingers. I’m smoking rollies the wrong way ‘round, sucking on a mouthful of tobacco. I’m discombobulated. I’m texting my fiancé in Nigeria. She’s asleep but I’m texting her anyway. When she wakes there’ll be over …

“Detective Earl Horsewhite, as I live and breathe, it is you!” Mona LaPiere, chanteuse extraordinaire, had been lounging in the San Angelo P.D. interrogation room for a half an hour, behaving as though she was pool-side at the Hilton. Earl had been observing her the entire time, memories of love and suffering fighting his professional judgment. She’d been exonerated of …

Jack and his mother were so poor they had only a cow. When the cow stopped giving milk, his mother told Jack to sell the cow. You knew that. What about the rest of the story? What about the old man with the beans? Why trade magic beans for a cow? The old man was a secret wizard and was …

Into a nondescript cardboard box, they packed what remained of her life since she wasn’t one for owning things and due to her great age, although she would argue that there wasn’t much great about living ninety-six years, she didn’t really need much more than her prayer books, her many and ornate crucifixes that she worshiped and even kissed as …

“David, come with me, please.” Mr. Watson thundered. His normally happy, half stoned face was solemn as he pushed himself up from his desk and gestured toward the hallway. Everyone in the classroom looked up from their quizzes and love notes and knives gouging fancy S’s into the desks to watch me follow Mr. Watson into the hall. I glanced …

I grew up thinking my mother was magic. She recited memorized poetry in the bath every night and when she was home (which was often), she was naked, if not in her long silk robe that always drooped lazily, untied, and exposing her all the same. She smelt of rum and frankincense and had hair so long and so thick …

You are sitting at home one Wednesday afternoon when you get a call. 9-1-1, you are having an emergency, the voice on the other end says. You decide to remain calm. You ask her to be a little more specific. That’s not my department, she explains, I can transfer you, but there’s a three-to-five minute hold-time, and by then….I understand, …

Two new crutches and two double shots of Bushmills Irish Whiskey enabled Joe Faherty to move from the back seat of Moira Murphy’s 1976 Buick into Eagan’s Funeral Home for Tim McGillicuddy’s wake. At 87, Joe was in bad shape, only a tad better than McGillicuddy who looked splendid in a rococo casket. The way the funeral home had painted …

’twas 1978, early morn on the eve of all Eves, snow came crashing in waves of big fat flakes that blasted our dingy urban world in a blanket of white wintry innocence. As I recall decades later, with nostalgic-tinted glasses, the mundane neighborhood landscape seemed to turn magical as I looked out the fogged-up windows and saw this dream scene. …

My first response to the accident? I was catatonic. “They’re all dead. They’re all dead.” I don’t know how many times I repeated it. I’m sure I sounded mechanical. That was my first response on January 28, 1986 to the shuttle Challenger disaster. At 11:39 in the morning. Seventy-three seconds of that day started the darkest period of my life. …

There’s this show on MTV called Ridiculousness, where Rob Dyrdek, 42, is the coolest, most quick-witted, snap-backin’est, high schoolin’est adult ever, and he spends 22 minutes of a half hour around 10pm laughing at and narrating videos he selected from the part of the internet where people get hurt. He wears snapbacks bearing the Monster Energy Drink logo and overlarge …

The heat had become unbearable that summer. “Make it stop, daddy,” Liddy’s son, Torin, said, as they walked home from school. The sun glared down with a vengeance, its rays like vicious lapping tongues. It seemed to Liddy that the sun was angry at the earth. “I can’t make it stop,” said Liddy. “But we’ll be home shortly. Mom will …

Researchers at the Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Research Center were talking while looking at the wide screen showing numerous stars as dots, floating rocky planets and gaseous clusters. “This one is located twenty light years away. The planet should be habitable with the right gravity and pressure as is revolves around its star very comfortably in the goldilocks zone” “Does it have …

Day World Hickory Dickory days, divided into boxes— Time to eat breakfast. (Finish all your egg!) Wash your hands and face. Brush your teeth. (Always up and down.) Sit on the toilet. Wipe front to back. (But never why.) Story time— play time— lunch time— nap time. Take the key and wind her up. If she hollers, shut her up. …

It was the night of the slumber party. The little brother served bowls of ridged potato chips and garlic and onion dip to the teenage sister and her friends in pajamas. But wait! Wasn’t there a truck driving past the house at that moment? Try to remember! The truck was painted violet with decorative tendrils of fuchsia, and silver, remember? …

Buick. Nice polish. Oops. My key fell and scratched the paint job. Stupid rich folks. Camera. Burnt orange. Dumb color. Will they notice this new line on their windshield? Asinine Volvo. Fancy Shmancy. Look at that! So many bags from senseless stores. So much money wasted! Oops! I think they now have a slow leak in one of their front …

The creek water was milky after a full mornings rain. The song birds singing their tunes in the rising humidity of the afternoon sun. Shelly yawns and stretches her arms up high and looks at me. I can feel her. I’d kiss her again, but I’m afraid. How long before she gets bored and moves on, I wonder? Plenty of …

The haunted trail was a sexy choice, Owen reflected in study hall. It was a perfect combo of darkness and closeness: make-out city, baby. Not that he was particularly anxious about it. He liked being around Amanda Overstreet; kissing would only be a bonus. In fact, he just plain liked her. That purring voice, man! Those swimmy eyes. Owen grinned …

***URGENT*** AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS MESSAGE, DECODE AND READ IT. THEN DESTROY IT ELECTRONICALLY SO THAT IT CANNOT BE RECOVERED ••• Human beings have shown themselves to be too stupid to govern themselves. They fall for the most outrageous lies and vote for candidates who are clearly unfit to govern. Our movement was started to protect people from …

I saw Jadene, my neighbor across the street, take a sledgehammer to her small brick house. She was working on the east side, smacking the red bricks cemented in a row right above the cement pad, cracking bricks and then removing chunks with a small crow bar. I don’t know how long Jadene had been at the task. When I …

Each street has its own imbecile, and such was the case with ours. His name was Vaja, with a stutter that caused him many troubles. Anybody could “pretend to be” Vaja and allow himself to babble everything. Nonetheless, sometimes it is useful to have such poor idiots. Vaja invented the word “Ке-ке”, which means: “someone has died.” One day some …

What do you have that I might buy for my girl? What do you have that I might buy for my sweetheart? The Mary Kay lady who just rematerialized looked at him with skeletal cheekbones and said, for what seemed to him the ten thousandth time, I told you I told you I told you, I did: I’ve got nothing …

Bobo inherited the corporation from his father, becoming the principal shareholder and chairman of the board of directors. His first executive action was to have a meeting with the management team to brainstorm new ideas for the budget. “I think we should invest more in long term infrastructure,” said Manager #9. “A review of current tax liabilities and implications would …

She closed the door and, through the peep hole, watched him walk down the hall to the elevator as his semen leaked from between her legs and pooled in her underpants. As soon as he had disappeared from sight, she pressed her forehead against the door and began to quietly cry. From behind her came a familiar voice. “I thought …

“There’s a French word for the expressions Manet paints on his models. Gayua’s anomie. There is no more moral constraint. And why not? The liberte, equalite and fraternite of 1793 has dissolved all social conventions into pulp. They’re now called pretentions. Modernists are all around us. Manet understood the exhaustion of life that has made us nothing more than stunned …

“You see, there’s always an increase in stake and a gap and a back up against the wall. Now, look…” He flicked his cigarette. “No matter how much you write, you want more.” Lilly was just listening. Herb was in one of his moods. “It was cool, so clever, the way that thing just arrived in me.” Herb lit another …

My first born of two sons died nine years ago. It was the day after Easter Sunday and the month prior to his 18th birthday. Without warning and within moments our lives were unequivocally altered. We were pummeled to our knees, bloodied and broken by the happenstances of life. He died within 20 feet of his father and I… horrific …

Above the decorative bells, mounted within the steeple of the Lutheran church, a pair of loud speakers blare a recording of bells. The ringing falls from its rafters like shattered glass on pavement. Parishioners mill around, wearing polite smiles that match their Sunday best. Mouths move, heads nod, but no one can hear the other. As long as nothing is …