Short fiction and non-fiction essays for your entertainment and inspiration.
SHORT STORIES
CATAGORIES :
BUTTERMILK CINNAMON PUPPIES
For two years, without success, I had been trying to produce a cinnamon roll that was soft, smooth and cuddly like a new puppy. But instead of getting a chewy, moist bakery roll, I kept getting something like a supermarket roll that seemed a little coarse and even dry – more like an old dog than a puppy.
In re National Corn
“She’s asking for ten million?” he asked.
Gabby said, “She wants to settle and get out. No alimony. Just child support, but that’s not contested. Did you bone her?”
“No, of course not. Husband is the controller of National Corn? What’s he draw down annually?”
Colder already had a tax form in his hand.
“Six hundred plus,” he said. “I should’ve just gone into corporate accounting. I’d be him by now. Big ass pension fund. House on the hill.”
“You have all that,” Gabby reminded him.
“Still,” Colder mused. “I’ll bet we work harder than he does.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Ten million seems steep.”
“She says he has it.”
“So, what do you need me for?”
“She wants to bring some pressure to bear on him.”
The Fly Killers
Jackson rolled over and sighed. The sun beat in through the window, striking him across the eyes. He turned away from the window and toward the bedside table, where his precious Darlingtonia californica sat in her bed of sphagnum moss, waiting patiently for a wayward insect to come her way. The sunlight glistened on Darling’s spindly stalks, with their bulbous heads that reared up like swollen cobras. They were beautiful and sensual and deadly.
A Little Red, A Little Blue
Now, Rich’s number one rule is no magic – and that includes curses and even innocent little tricks, but I remembered having some red stool in my younger days when I was really hooked on Indian cuisine, so the next day I marinated a big batch of chicken in Tandoori paste with a lot of extra red food coloring and baked it up for dinner. We all pooped red bricks for two days.
Ask Me
My father simply spills out of my mouth from time to time, causing me great embarrassment.
I hadn’t seen Dan in twenty years, and he had barely changed in all that time, while I have gone from a robust forty-something to a bald old version of Joe Sr., who, in fact, died just a few years ago with a full head of wavy white hair.
I said to Dan, “You haven’t changed a bit!”
And then the ghost of my father piped in, “Because you were an old guy when I met you!”
I could have crawled under the table and died.
A Tepid Cup of Coffee
I’m currently transitioning from my nth career as a college professor to a full-time fiction writer, and it’s a scary transition.
Under the Lake
The moment I plunged into the deep, clear, and ice-cold water of the caldera, I became known to myself. The water was cathartic, an antiseptic to my wounded soul. It shocked the breath from my chest and needles of pain pierced what had been a fog surrounding my person in a protective shroud.