10 Monday Jun 2013
Posted in Culture
A few years ago I had three selections published in a short-short fiction (55 words and under) competition. I enjoy micro-fiction as a writing exercise, and enjoy reading it when done well, but not too many people take it seriously. You can decide for yourself whether I did, as I’ve included all three stories in glorious Hear-O-Vision.
Canis Diabolus
Dark Days in Derwinshire
Grace and Stephen (inexplicably titled The Favor for publication)
31 Thursday May 2012
Posted in Culture, Entertainment
Tags
arson, burning, coming of age, dumb kids and the dumb things they do to fuck up their lives, fire, flash fiction, possibly true stories, Promethean Short Short Stories
That he hadn’t meant for it to happen ceased to matter when flame met cloth, becoming a thing unto itself. It licked at the curtains, spreading like water.
It didn’t matter either that when he understood what he had set in motion, it killed him some to think what might be consumed by the elemental hunger.
That nobody would even get hurt did matter, just not enough. It might save his soul, but couldn’t return what was lost.
Knowing none of this yet and all of it too, he fled from the flame-bleached night into darkness, cool and forgiving like the Lethe.
It followed him all his days.
14 Friday Jan 2011
Posted in Culture
Tags
death by automobile, death by truck, dumb kids and the dumb things they do to fuck up their lives, fables, flash fiction, Goofus & Gallant, Highlights for Children, irony, Johnny, Promethean Short Short Stories, things which are ferrous, Will
Will started to ask, but Johnny dashed laughing and joyblind across an intersection snarled by onrushing vehicles, heralded by an irascible ensemble of crying brakes and strident horns.
Will waited as always for the signal’s sanction, only then crossing carefully to Johnny, eyes continually flicking left then right, repeating interminably.
The brothers walked, reaching another intersection.
Will shouted as Johnny rushed again into the roiling street, asking
What’s irony?
On the far side Johnny considered, with Will awaiting the light before beginning fastidiously to pick his way across. Johnny started speaking when an onrushing truck flattened Will like a dime.
29 Friday Oct 2010
Posted in Culture
While the old folks couldn’t agree on the name of that long-ago stranger, they accorded that his aims had been righteous and his grievances valid, ignoring that those had been their aims and grievances too.
In half-remembered youth they had gathered mutely on the Common as the stranger and his grim company strode past like avatars of the gods come to deliver them from misfortune. They crept like lingering shadows behind the small band to the Big Man’s house.
There they watched as the Big Man’s gunmen cut down the stranger and his party like dogs.
17 Thursday Jun 2010
Posted in Christianity, Crime, Culture, Justice, Literature, Mythology, People, Promethean Short Short Stories, Relationships
Directed more by some entropic and unknowable inertia than by free will, Dora felt herself take two uncomprehending steps backward until her backside met the stove, which squealed briefly in protest.
The smoking gun in her right hand was spent and had become heavier somehow, as if it had swapped cold lethality for substance. She let it fall, refusing to acknowledge either it or the spreading pool of blood spotlighting Martin like a mandorla on an Orthodox icon.
Mama’s voice worried inside Dora’s head: Baby, did you mean to do it?
As hot, bitter tears spilled over the back of the hand clutched to her mouth, Dora answered: I don’t know.
It was God’s truth.
14 Friday May 2010
Posted in Culture, Humor, Literature, Military, Movies, Mythology, People, Promethean Short Short Stories, Relationships
Tags
anticlimactic stories, cliche, flash fiction, hibiscus, I got a bad feeling about this one, mangrove, optimism, pessimism, Promethean Short Short Stories
I got a bad feeling about this one, Sarge.
The private’s eyes shone bright and innocent under the moonshadow cast by hibiscus-draped mangroves, hulking and gnarled with age.
I’m gonna buy it out here. I can feel it.
A nightjar’s call pierced the chittering insect liturgy that was the land’s buzz-choked heartbeat. The young man cried out at the sound.
Sarge’s voice twinkled with checked laughter: You’ll be fine, Kid. I’ll bet you’re back home in Valley City before Thanksgiving.
Sure, the young man said, trying to imbue his words with a conviction he did not feel.
And wouldn’t you know it? Sarge was right: the war ended two days later and everyone involved lived happily ever after.
23 Friday Apr 2010
Posted in Crime, Culture, Literature, People, Promethean Short Short Stories, Relationships
Tags
cops, Crime, flash fiction, Johnny Law, Jose Cuervo, living in squalor, police, Promethean Short Short Stories, Single Wide trailers, trailer parks, trailer trash
Heather sat outside on a chaise in deep sweating darkness, keeping company with her old friend Jose Cuervo. Occasionally she slapped at the mosquitoes orbiting her thighs, which shone from under cutoff Levis like marble in the moonlight.
Travis couldn’t meet her eyes when he finally returned home reeking of engine oil and bad business.
Not long after, she saw lights in the distance, watching them grow for a long time before the police cruiser arrived, wishing all her troubles could be so overt and so slow in coming.
Red and blue strobes lent the trailer a beauty she didn’t understand except that it reminded her of Christmas.
Her heart broke a little watching them recede.
05 Monday Apr 2010
Posted in Literature, Promethean Short Short Stories
Tags
convenience store robberies, daddy issues, flash fiction, junkies, Promethean Short Short Stories
The QuickSave night attendant looked like a nice guy–the way Ronnie Stroud imagined his own father might have looked if he’d lived longer, but lacking the flashpoint rage which kept the elder Stroud incarcerated more days than not during his wasted life.
I’m not my father. Ronnie repeated this lie as the doors parted before him and a solitary DING heralded him into the fluorescent kingdom of convenience.
But it was like this: Ronnie had a habit and a gun; the rabbit-eyed clerk stood between Ronnie and his need.
Telling himself he had no choice made it bearable.
26 Friday Mar 2010
Posted in Literature, Promethean Short Short Stories
Marty Fish was a collections man without equal. Unshakable as a shadow and relentless as the tide, Marty squeezed the deadbeats with a voice like a viola. Or a fist.
Nobody made you get that card, Marty liked to say, and You’ll pay what you owe, by God. They always did, and not by God–by Marty.
When Marty stopped coming to work, the agency replaced him. It’s too bad, his supervisor said.
When the police found Marty stabbed to death in his tidy bachelor apartment, nobody was surprised. His debts were apparently paid in full, plus some accrued interest.
