The children asked for the story. They sat in a circle around the old man, who squinted at the massive pictures as if they were the smallest of symbols. His voice came out shaky—he’d been a smoker—and without much volume, but the children stared in rapt attention.
They did not need exactly to hear it. They all knew the story well enough. They could all recite it, really, if it came to such a thing. Continue reading
Mackenzie had her hood pulled down and her eyes stayed hard on the sidewalk. She ran, but cautiously. Avoiding bumping into anyone. She did not want to risk falling over.
Shadows warped and elongated. It was getting dark fast. This was going to hit right now.
She glanced up, but not too far, and spied a bakery. The patrons of the restaurant were peering past her and would for a very long time. She shoulder-checked open the door, even though it was not locked, and ran for the bathroom. Continue reading
A bubble of air moves to the surface and pops. Anderson raises his eyebrow at this.
“What’s that…?” he asks and leans over the hole.
“Just air escaping,” Sonia says, and adjusts in her seat. She’d let Anderson have the one actual chair and was sitting on a bucket inside the makeshift tent.
“But from what? How did air get down there?” Anderson says, and keeps his head over the hole. Nothing else happens to the surface, nothing much moves or shudders. “We’ve had no fish for hours, and then this…” Continue reading
Okay, as promised, and as an exercise in sharing, here it is: the story of my interaction with a baby bird, and how I probably failed to save its life.
So, here’s the scene: I walk every day, and during one of my walks, I was listening to music and going along, when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a colorful blob with eyes. Continue reading
Life is weird. You already knew that. But if you are a writer, you owe it to yourself to make it weirder. Go out of your way and end up in the strangest situations you can manage. Most people already say to “take a chance,” to “expand your horizons,” and any other of those cookie-cutter platitudes.
But no, that is not what I am telling you to do: not specifically. I am telling you that as a writer, you might be so blessed as to be a weird magnet, and if you’re not, you should act like you are. Because you are one of the few types of people who can take such raw material and do something better with it than occasionally entertaining dinner guests. Continue reading
I am a firm believer that being good at storytelling requires one to learn how to tell a tale at great length or in a short burst. And so, because of this first story:
“Today’s busy, this fills time.” Continue reading
Only, of course, it totally is….
So about a week ago, I had this sentence pop into my head, apropo of nothing:
“He punched him in the face like he had just insulted his religion, his mother, and his sexuality all in one perfectly constructed slur.”
I was originally just going to use it as the starting sentence for one of my microfictions, but after tossing it around in my head, I couldn’t come up with anything I was satisfied with. Continue reading
Two flash fictions this week?
Is this some kind of crazy dream?
Maybe…
But even if it is, I invite you to enjoy it.
With a story called:
The Monster at the End of the Hallway Continue reading
So, here’s another creepy flash fiction…
Cue, Drum Roll!
Presenting:
So, another week, another flash fiction.
It seems that I cannot break this habit. Though, honestly why would I want to?
So here is my newest story, this time written without a contest to guide me.
A spur of the moment idea. I hope you guys like it.
So let’s go….I present my latest piece….
Ramblings of a Dead Man Continue reading
Alright, so it turns out I can write things that are not reviews.
Well, fancy that.
Yeah so, I recently wrote a short story. It’s called “Garbage Man”.
It was an idea I had a few months back, but I guess it took till now for all of it to be sorted out in my head.
So I wrote it. Not knowing if it was any good, or even worth a damn. Continue reading
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