Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category

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Scaffolding

In Fiction on July 3, 2013 at 2:29 pm

rescuers

Scaffolding

“I used to work at that grocery store,” Sue says. She crosses her legs and a shoe goes tumbling to the roof below. The scaffolding sways.

“Yeah,” I say.

Way up here, we’re weathervanes. We’re aligned with the wind and following it out, fleeting. Our words disintegrate and become silence.

“I used to smoke behind that fence,” I say, “between classes.” Sue nods. The gray clouds roll overhead.

“Sad how things change,” she says. “Sad how nothing’s what you remember.”

We look at our town, our memories stretched upon the frame of the present. We’re not ready to climb down. Read the rest of this entry »

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Shrimp ‘n’ Grits

In Fiction on July 2, 2013 at 9:34 pm

kitchen pans

Shrimp ‘n’ Grits

“Oh darling, you’re so wonderfully crude,” the senator’s wife exclaimed. “But shh, he’s coming.” She tilted her head to indicate the approaching waiter.

“You folks know what you’d like?” the waiter asked. He crossed his hands politely.

“How do you like the shrimp and grits?” the senator’s wife asked with only a hint of a smile. The waiter smiled broadly.

“Just about my favorite dish on the menu!” he said. “Real nice; like what I had growin’ up.”

“You grow up around here, son?” the senator asked, solemn as a sermon. The waiter nodded.

“’Bout five miles down the road, yessir,” he said.

One of the senator’s party leaned across the table. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Original Sin Inn

In Fiction on July 2, 2013 at 5:36 pm

The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden ( )

The Original Sin Inn

The hotel was called the Original Sin Inn, partly because of its location in the Garden District and partly because of its reputation for depraved debauchery. If even half the stories I’d heard were true, there wasn’t a crime that hadn’t been committed under Philippe Bonté’s roof—and Bonté, for his part, had more than enough clout to keep the lawmen away.

Well, he couldn’t keep me away, not when it was a matter of life or continued death. I pushed through the front doors and into the white marble lobby with as much swagger as I could muster, and called out to no one in particular: “Where’s Bonté?”

My voice came back to me in crisp, cold echoes. The lobby was deserted. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Black River

In Fiction on June 27, 2013 at 9:54 pm

fire truck

The Black River

The old desert tortoise took slow, deliberate steps. One leg up, one leg down, with a dull scrape as his shell dragged along.

“Before the black river came, the crossin’ took ages,” he told the young ones that scrambled in his wake. “Of course, these days it’s hurry, hurry, hurry. Go, go, go.”

The sun was high and they cast no shadows.

“Technology…” the tortoise muttered.

Then suddenly the ground began to rumble, and the pebbles skipped and snapped on the quaking road—and a great red beast went screaming past.

“Hey!” the old tortoise bellowed. “Where’s the fire, Bub?”


Tomorrow is Friday, so that could only mean one thing: Friday Fictioneers! This is my response to this week’s photo prompt, above, taken by Indira.

Click the blue guy up there to read the other stories, and have a great weekend!

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The Mechanic

In Fiction on June 24, 2013 at 11:21 pm

rusty gearsThe Mechanic

The door of the station wagon let out a pitiful metallic wail as my wife pulled it shut; the Aries had always been a piece of shit, I thought. My son stared blankly from the passenger seat, watching me in the doorway—watching as his mother backed down the long driveway and into the icy street.

“You’re like a goddam robot,” she had said. “Christ, Andrew, can’t you show even a little emotion about this?”

I couldn’t, so I shrugged blithely, like I was watching someone else’s life fall apart on TV. That’s when she’d started packing her bags.

Honestly, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Marriages end all the time—the statistics are staggering—and I wasn’t about to break down just because we’d failed like so many others. I even felt freed by it; I watched the sun scrape through a dull orange sky and dip below the horizon, then stayed up into the night working on my coupe and watching black-and-white reruns on the flat screen. Read the rest of this entry »

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Omne Trium Perfectum

In Fiction on June 21, 2013 at 10:51 am

English: Three Ek Knives

Omne Trium Perfectum

They say bad things come in threes: misfortunes, children, crimes.

Omne trium perfectum, I say.

My brothers and I are three, but I’m youngest—the charmer. I lure the victims.

Then: Three cuts.

This 33-word story is my response to this weekend’s Trifextra challenge: Third time’s the charm. I went creepy with it, clearly. Check out the rest of this week’s stories for all kinds of great reading fun.

And happy weekend everyone!

*The phrase “omne trium perfectum” is Latin and roughly means “everything in threes is perfect/complete.”

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The Post

In Fiction on June 20, 2013 at 1:43 pm

Guard, copyright Managua Gunn

The Post

Elizabeth stood with pride, ennobled by her place in the city’s secret history; through every hour of every day—on every day of every year since 1372—a guard had stood at this spot, and now the post was hers.

Her gun was loaded; her bayonet was sharp; her orders were simple: Kill anyone who willfully pursued the Secret.

Not that the tourists knew this. To them, she was a quaint anachronism. But the ornate government offices behind her were a decoy, built to deflect attention from her true charge: the grate upon which she stood.

Far below, the Ancients fumbled in the dark, roaming the catacombs in search of light.

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Garden District

In Fiction on June 18, 2013 at 8:27 pm

Garden District

The Garden District

Philippe Bonté had clubs all over town—Carrollton, Gentilly, the Lower Ninth—but it was Sunday morning, and that meant I’d find him at his Garden District hotel, likely sipping black coffee and balancing some lithe teenage girl on his knee. For a criminal, Bonté kept a surprisingly high profile; his schedule was practically public knowledge, and Madelaine’s story was far from the first I’d heard of the man. I knew he was dangerous.

But as I walked from Madelaine’s apartment, stumbling a bit on the sun-kissed cobblestones, it occurred to me that she was dangerous. Read the rest of this entry »

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From the Cradle

In Fiction on June 17, 2013 at 4:18 pm

palm trees

From the Cradle

Fevered, I dreamt I crawled a burning maze, my limbs withering and sloughing off in my wake; dead men chattered nonsense, mouths filled with ash, eyes filled with pain; then a drenching rain swept up from some distant gulf, washing the ash and limbs and fire into an endless black chasm.

When I woke, dew dripped from the palms, dropping heavy in the leaves. A faint light glowed over the dunes to the east, pink like lilies in the spring. The oasis, our green cradle, seemed to sigh. We were safe.

I let my brother sleep and set to work digging a shallow grave. Read the rest of this entry »

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Summer

In Fiction on June 14, 2013 at 1:57 pm

orange sunlight

Summer

Responsibility

is the artifice of adulthood.

We are industrious

in our pursuit of complication—

of noble strife.

Promotions, office drama, coffee preferences,

scraping cents.

But summer

is the soul’s breath.

Sunlight.

Earth. Read the rest of this entry »