Category: short fiction
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M0 J0
He wore his sport coat like a cape. Face all the worse for gravity’s ongoing story. Thin red lips stenciled across pancake batter, triplicate chins that spilled over a black bolo tie. Silver shock of greasy hair combed back towards sloping shoulders. Twin thistles arched over eyes with no apparent iris. MoJo would hobble into…
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undressed.
this was a window created, made with an outside on either side. wasn’t enough to be left out in the cold, watching what was indoors, all the lovely enthusiasms that didn’t involve you, but a reflection of what it might be like if you were allowed in there, standing, smiling, a window with built-in reminders…
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maytwentyeighteen.
standing at gulf’s edge, watching emerald waves roll in with the latest news, spread themselves at my feet, sediment for sandpipers, sun with an afternoon glare that sends cat paw clouds towards the horizon, where storms ring warning bells; still too far for thunder, replaced by the hungry reminder of jet engines, twin fighters that…
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gift.
It wasn’t too far from this place that I saw my first coyote, she told her daughter, and I remember because it wasn’t more than a few minutes after that when I saw the river change directions. She felt her daughter’s eyes staring up from the six-year-old height of four feet, fingers locked into a…
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caterwaul.
the caterpillars have come back, once again sporting such April fashion sense. first spring of Season 2. seemingly recent arrivals crawling along the catwalk with with all the determination of a a young upstart. single undulating inch draped with a fur coat of pale-yellow static. bright dandelion faces on a mission. depending on the angle,…
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not just asking, this time.
when i was thirteen, i stood at the base of a wooden tongue, night, no rain, and watched as lightning plowed its fingers into the ocean, sand, touched down, and i felt the world drop away, maybe this would be the way to end things, convinced, i ran an entire mile, between purple bolts, lattice…
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you had your year.
it’s not enough to revise any length of days or events in rewind. you were beating your head against the cemetery wall, and that was then, then now, and when an ecstatic snowfall of fireworks triggered the first smile felt in so long, that was then, then now, and if you think you can have…
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corner pocket, 2018
corner pocket, corner pocket, corner pocket, i called it. this game of 9 ball started in mid-March, that was the break. the thunderbolt, sledge hammer that shattered the rack, dissolved the pact, sent numbers spinning. and i blinked, missing the moment where the 1 got away, a sly ghost-out into the side. but…
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christmas in a laboratory.
Two sub-levels down, the little robot quietly raised his head. He counted the minutes. Kept an eye on the door. On the keypad, its digits a calculus red. Once convinced, he stretched his set of mismatched wheels and went for a walk. As always, he reached his destination within seconds. Ends of his rubber-lined, caterpillar…
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wonderland.
Manny lost his thumb while carving initials into a Sunset Park sycamore on Christmas day. He had run from his house, boots crushing through a fresh snowfall north towards the hill. Streets empty, storefronts shuttered. Occasional fire hydrant peeking out from the drift, curious snouts wondering where the world went. From within his red skully,…
notes from a never-was. 