Category: Short Story
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No One Makes Money at Landlocked Bars on Holiday Weekends
If I only knew the time, he thought, I would know it all. Standing behind the bar on a slow holiday weekend he would wax philosophical. Something outside would catch his eye and the thought would skip away. Like how the awning of the place retracted with one of those poles you slipped through a…
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Gas Money, Honey
Eastern Pennsylvanians love their hoagies. I’d pulled into a gas station after driving six hours north. The place advertised 2 for 1 liters of cola and state minimum cigarette prices. A ‘70s style goose sweeping across a setting sun illuminated above their door. Mosquitoes flocked to its luminance. I parked the car in the rear…
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Ringtone (Killing Trevor Pt. 3)
Henry hadn’t set an alarm for a reason. That waking up to a machine nonsense was only a necessary means to an end. A crutch to maintain his place in the realm of responsible adulthood. That morning, he wanted to see how far his body could go naturally catching him up on the sleep his…
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Thirst (Killing Trevor Pt. 2)
She opened the door to the gas station half expecting the counter to be unmanned. Phillip, the greasy-haired attendant who worked the night shift, had a habit of stepping out the back to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette, leaving the counter empty. He’d stand within earshot of the bells that hung from the front door and…
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Headache (Killing Trevor Pt. 1)
The rain pounded on the metal roof of the car. It smattered against the glass. Filtered by those creeping droplets on the windows, the streetlight shadows animated the surfaces of the couple’s still faces. Cynthia, her thinly plucked eyebrows raised, looked at his hands as they gripped the steering wheel. A nervous tick of his,…
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A Line at Twin Rivers
I look up from my watch and hock a wad of phlegm into the mulch trying to seem more ticked off than I am because we’d been standing in line for forty-five endless minutes. I could have watched half a movie in this time. I keep thinking about and that thought makes me irritable. So…
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Pink Bow Untied
Rain would have been more fitting. Clouds. Torrential downpours. Some freak hurricane. Not this nurturing warmth that was carried in the breeze along with the songs of springtime robins. The boys were out with their father picking up new fishing poles and getting something for lunch. Patrick felt it best that Isabella, his wife, the…
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Burning the Tracks
A red glow washed over the amorphous designs on the table. Thin, bent tubes housing neon bordered the metallic siding. She sat in the hollow space carved out by the fish tank wall wrapping behind their customary booth. He hadn’t answered her question, the question she had asked him her to pose. She knew he…
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A Plate for Pickles
There are many things Nancy does regularly. She looks out the window in her flat for hours on end. She sees people leave for their jobs in the morning. She sees them return to their homes in the evening. She cleans her flat every morning. She picks up the phone and has lengthy conversations. She…
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Bad Business
Habit had me walking home along the trolley rails late at night when no one else was on the road. A girl with a bag hanging on her hip was coming down the hill next to my building. She saw me stepping off the rails and onto the sidewalk. She passed my door as I…
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Middleton
Middle age endows its members with, amongst strands of grey, bushels of gifts. Most are neglected, others embraced, but none must go unnoticed. Years accumulate, begging the excavation of long-buried relics—memories tucked under blankets of time. Unlike meticulously dusted deposits of Jurassic carbon, the artifacts of days past have a tendency to uproot hurriedly from…
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A Story About Running
“So, it’s a story about love?” “No. It’s a story about running.” “Oh. Tell it again. I must not have been listening.” “Way back when your mom and I used to share an apartment, I used to go running. I went nearly every day. And nearly every day, I would ask your mom to come…
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Washed Away with the Floodwater
The old man adopted Kiddo in April at the suggestion of his eldest granddaughter. She told him a puppy would be good for him, what with a year of living alone under his belt. When she first offered the idea, just a short time after Julia went to the Lord and the walls of the…
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The Driving Southbound Rain
There was more rain than he had seen in one place. It was less like driving through rain and more like driving while a five-gallon bucket emptied over the windshield over and over. The wipers thudded in sloppy rhythm as he reached for the final inch of coffee waiting cold in the styrofoam cup. About…
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A Mass Engraving
Requests come in daily. They are from loved ones wanting a rubbing from the Wall. A rubbing of the engraving they have requested be mailed to them. Loved ones who are unable to make the trip to the capitol. Loved ones who will not see their own eyes staring back from the glassy black wall.…
Sophisticating the Rudimentary 