Tag: short story

  • Antares’ Benediction

    Antares’ Benediction

        Reeves loved Antares, seven hundred times the size of our sun, the giant red star in the constellation Scorpius. Five hundred and fifty light years away sounds like a lot but only when constrained by gravity. The distance shrinks to nothing when freed by death, the opposite of gravity, serving as a celestial…

  • 6424 Avenue Z

    6424 Avenue Z

        Before she died, Grandma made me promise that I’d take care of her house. How could I say no? She was the only person in this whole world who didn’t look at me and see a good for nothing loser. Mama didn’t even tell me who my daddy was before she up and…

  • Lines

    Lines

      There were two lines for the pharmacy, each as straight as two lines of coke on a mirror edged by a social razor. She was in one, and I was in the other. It was a simultaneous connection, like a quick addiction, but one without any immediate fix since we were both kept in…

  • The Pop Machine

    The Pop Machine

      1   Our school got new washrooms with automatic hand-dryers over the summer break. Us boys liked to aim them down our shirts and pants, feeling the warm air as our clothes bubbled and ballooned. It made for good times, so we told the girls. They claimed to have new hand-dryers, too. “How many…

  • The Testament of Algorithms

    The Testament of Algorithms

      It had been a long year – not a good year, but a long one.  When it was finally over, when the last bottle of cheap wine was upturned in the ice bucket, when the last guest left, leaving a wreck of their small apartment, Glen and Glenda turned to each other.  The question…

  • A Ghost Wouldn’t Say That

    A Ghost Wouldn’t Say That

    One moonless Friday night in October, a man and a woman on a Harley came roaring up Illinois 440 with Spalding behind them and Colby City a few miles ahead. They passed the Christmas tree farm, they passed the hog market, they made the quick little S-curve without incident even though they’d never been on…

  • At World’s Edge

    At World’s Edge

    On the edge of the world, an old man had built his house. This house, of old brick, dark wood, and clay tiles of burnt orange, was naught more than a lean-to, though it served his purposes well. In fact, it could hardly be called a lean-to, as it had nothing upon which to lean.…

  • Locket

    Locket

    She untied the bundle and started to leaf through the papers.  Something small fell out and clinked on the table.  She recognized it.  It was the locket she had given him when he left for Africa.  She tried to open it, but it was stuck. She banged it on the table to loosen the clasp…

  • Leofflæd

    Leofflæd

    Though she had often been warned about the will-o’-the-wisps, as a child, her curiosity drove her to follow one deep into the woods. She had been listening to the crows (anxious, as they were, to leave for the winter) when it caught her eye and lead her out of town, into the woods. She chased…

  • The Curbside Discount

    The Curbside Discount

    THE ORIENTATION: Professor Robin Nagle is situated so she can face all of us with her back against one of the four glass walls that make up the room we’re sitting in, a transparent cube within the otherwise penal-grey concrete basement that serves as host for the orientation before the tour. She begins hesitantly; the…

  • Dream Box

    Dream Box

    It had been awhile since an evening opened up for all six of them to get together. The Sterlings were homeschooling their two boys, both of the Smiths were coaching their daughter’s basketball team, and the Kensons, though childless, were busy with work. When people wish for time to slow down, it seems to speed…

  • Chronic, Traumatic, Eden

    Chronic, Traumatic, Eden

    At the base of the hills he met Emma, as they had done every day this summer, at 6:30. Their togetherness had become a kind of record; proof that one another had existed this and made the most of the long evenings. “Do you remember finding that tree that was struck by lightning?” Emma might…