Fiction

There once was a man and that man lost fifty coins in a business deal and was understandably disappointed. In a few days, he forgave himself, both the loss of coin and of his mind, and got back to the...

It was a typewritten page. At first I had assumed it had been a laser printout, from a computer, or, these days, from a tablet, or even a phone. But no, it was an actual typewritten page. There were n...

“There’s no magic,” he said, with spewing vitriol. “Why do you insist on this silliness?”
“It’s not silly. And you’d know that if you let your guard down.”
“I tried that. Over and over. I was raised...

She likes dismal as I like blood. We’re the exes who became best friends, only we’ve never been together. She’s the best friend I never really knew, and that’s likewise just as true in reverse.
Drivi...

There’s a grey indecisiveness to the mood of the sky today, above the ocean, her anger slowly building, past my perspective, beyond the curved horizon, there’s a new storm at brew, the tickling of a r...

And he looked o’er the broad sea and to the curved horizon beyond, and sought peace, but found naught. And he drank from the deepest fount, from the waters cooled of the depths of time, and sought pea...

But my fate was chosen before I grew wise, and my fate was to cook, to heat, and to give sustenance to the many. The pain I avoided a great many times, with prudence and alertness, I kept my fingers f...

You told me there was more, outside the small window in the bare wood door, more to see, to know, to feel, to explore. I was a superhero, in your eyes, in my multicolored dreams and multifaceted yearn...

He looked like his grandfather, only strangely older. He wasn’t of course. That would be impossible. Chronologically.
But in other ways, many ways, Frank acted and seemed as old as the Appalachians. ...

I realized when I woke several mornings at three-thirty that I had interrupted another me, from some faded mirror reality not quite mine, in the sense of this world, this dimension, this reality, but ...

“What are you so scared of, Gilbert?”
“That place is fucking creepy.”
“Scaredy cat.”
“Am not.”
“Let’s go closer. I dare ya.” Danny grinned a grin that seemed ominous to Gilbert, though that wasn’t...

“You warm my fucking heart, baby,” he said. It was that full and real smile of hers that melted him. Every time. Butterflies and heat and roller coasters. All at the same time.
“Awww, thanks, Hank.”
...

Jason had never spoken to her. Seeing her as merely a play toy, an object to satisfy his amusement and lust—and Father’s directive—he communicated with pokes, prods, and, occasionally, gesticulating m...

I typed in the search box on Facebook her name, Aimee Rogers. Thirty results. None of them her. I tried again, different variations, adding our high school, our hometown. Still no joy. I felt suddenly...

“Palms on the coffee table,” he said.
She complied.
He lifted her sheer dress, slid down her sheer panties, admired the slim roundness.
“What are you going to do to me?” she said. There was mischie...

He woke to strange surroundings. It was bright daylight. A slight rocking. A canopy of trees.
The hammock. In the backyard. Sunday afternoon. John had his bearings.
Was this his actual life? It was ...

“I will go away” was the sense I got from Carol as I saw the stark madness in her reddened eyes and there was blood in her cheeks, a scarlet anger, a crimson rage, a crossing of roses in the stint of ...

I know it’s not cool to drive my ’76 Gremlin, but to me, it’s my identity.
I remember the day it all clicked in for me. I was fourteen. My dad had bought the Gremlin new. He was proud. It was his fir...

“Swank.” That’s what she said when she dropped the check at the table. I was drinking my fourth beer, so my mind wasn’t all there but somewhere else and the word “swank” didn’t register.
And then it ...

I clearly remember the moment I died. When I saw my lifeless body, beyond peaceful, inert, on my bed, I first thought I was dreaming. Then I noticed the details. The color of the hardwood floor, a sha...

It's not all that hard, not really.
What's that? Life.
Bullshit! What's hard about it?
The usual. Money. Job. Relationships. Bullies. Bastards. Bitches.
Other people make your life hard?
Well, ye...

“That’s a simple question with a complicated answer.”
“Complicated doesn’t scare me.”
“Maybe it should.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, anyway. I was hoping we’d have a few more drinks; loosen up. Then—”
“Then?...

I’m sitting with a man I just met.
He’s overweight, but not unattractively so. He’s smoking Marlboro Reds. Says he gave em up for the fortieth time; started back up today, a day he calls grey.
He we...

It’s true. Women in their fifties are easier.
At least that’s been my experience.
I don’t mean to suggest they are loose. Or promiscuous. Most women in their fifties have less sex than their younger...

“I simply don’t believe in the limits that you believe in.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means precisely what it says. It means that I know that this life we share is limited only to the...

“Buy me a drink?”
She was slim, fit, wearing a bright and deep red shirt, cut low, revealing. Her smile pulled me in. I nodded. She sat on the barstool next to mine.
“What sort of music do you liste...

She’d cried at least once a day since March fourteenth.
Sally touched her iPhone to silence the alarm. She reached to the left side of the bed, the side nearer the bedroom door, and found it empty. A...

“There’s something I have to tell you, Frank.”
“I have a feeling I need to sit down for this.”
“Probably best.”
“Before you tell me, can I tell you something?”
“Oh, Frank. Why must you always do t...

“To say that you are a dream, my dream, is my highest compliment,” said Jordan.
“I don’t think of dreams as especially valuable. Does not everyone dream? Even the serf, the commoner, the field worker...

She was to him, the solid earth of sturdy pottery, though he had the tact to never tell her so. Life for Ben was mystery, was, though rarely tumultuous, also, rarely understood. When Stephanie looked ...

“You need to learn to stay in the moment,” she said.
I rarely flip my lid, but the culmination of the day’s events made me unusually susceptible, so, yeah, I flipped my lid. “How could I not stay in ...

The first time Victoria had looked in his eyes, she knew they’d be close. There was a calming majesty in Robert’s gaze. They were, at first, off-putting, his light green eyes, a subtle green like raw ...

So last night a vampire knocks on my door. I invited her in.

I've watched enough episodes of True Blood to know that was a bad idea. I knew she couldn't come in and drain my blood and kill me if I ...

His memory of the gym was blurred. It had been four months since John had worked out. After the accident, he’d been hospitalized for two weeks, the first of which he’d been in a coma.
Sally, his phys...

A spent Patron bottle.
He woke to the chill of four A.M. He'd slept in his car, convertible top down. After five minutes, the windshield cleared of its dew. He drove home.
Seven inches tall, five in...

I wonder if you know. I wonder if you could ever know. I wonder if you could ever know the fullness. I wonder if you could ever know the fullness of what I feel for you.

Of course, I love you. That...

“I taste the essence of your sensual heart. I feel the drips of your morning song. I merge with the colors of your unbinding soul. Today, destiny smiles.” Jeremy remembered the words he had posted on ...

He woke with a start that fateful new morning. Andrew was a bit disoriented and confused after sleeping what seemed a very long time. The time on his pocket watch on the table by his bed showed a diff...

He contemplated the questions before him as he sat in bed with his writing pad. It was Sunday morning and Abe decided he didn't need to be anywhere for a few hours that morning so he set his mind to c...

Ken Rider, a new-age guru and self-proclaimed student of creamed corn, has led a charmed life, in more ways than one. His rise to greatness began when he devised a microwave pouch for creamed corn. He...

On the front cover, there was a photo of an eel. It was quite long, with green splotches freckling its mostly purple skin. The caption read “Eel found in bathtub by 107 year old man.” Normally I don’t...

The black changed slowly to blue as the sleeping fox woke from a night of deep rest. Jason moved his hind legs under himself and rolled onto his belly. He knew it was time to begin again his long walk...

He reached up and tugged on Daddy's shirt.

"Can you hear it?"

Dan looked fondly at his son. He always saw a bit of Helen in his eyes; and a bit of himself. "Yes, I hear it, too." And they walked ...