1652 1 1
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He had a handsome dial tone, we called him every name but his.
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165200
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Still as the knife on the counter there still. Like mothballs in a chest. One with clear bags and newspaper clippings and your scarf inside it. The baby girl could put a mothball in her mouth and suck it like a penny. The way too close to a light bulb bur
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165222
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165277
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I spent most of those days in my car. Stashed in the trunk was a cache of precious stones, neatly sorted and separated, bound in smooth black velvet inside a smooth black briefcase.
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165121
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“They say she lives alone out there.” “What, like out in the woods?” “Not like way back in a cabin or anything, but in a little house out there off the road. I'm not even sure she has a car.” “What, does she…
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165111
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This new kid on the block, named Miller, showed up out of the blue one day, while we were throwing rocks and boulders down on this flimsy gray sheet of construction plywood that was covering an open trench in front of a new house on our block. One of the
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165131
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If this is trouble, please call someone else.
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165142
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Although badly educated, and although the Michoacána fought to deny it, she held the complex notion that borders are not abrupt lines, simple artifacts of geography and cartography.
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165165
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This writers' conference (sponsored by VQR, which had run its banner ad atop the Fictionaut home page in the summer of 2014, which begins to explain both my attendance and this essay) revealed itself as an apt subject . . .
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165153
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We sat in silence, the entire train, the few other passengers in anxious wait to see if I would change my mind. We all flipped pages, glanced up at each other, looked away when noticed.
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165100
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Caster had always imagined the Consensus as a big room, as big as the world, filled with white space and people with quantum wings, flitting about, creating information. There were tinted bubbles for people to share for privacy, and the lights never went
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165182
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The ocean smelled like decomposed plant life and clinically despicable vagina, but I still spoke of its power and my fear of it in moonlit clichés and she still listened.
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165120
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The rocket shone in the distance. Cape Canaveral had never looked so pretty.
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165112
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I have no confidence that you'll complete the task. Shit, you probably don't even understand it in the slightest.
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165133
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A small bar of glycerin soap floated in the sink full of bloody water . . .
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165197
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Out in the world again, pretending to belong.
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1651108
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Sunday morning beginning with a bang. Accused, found wanting, sentenced.
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1651116
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The days cut off by damp chill with every thought a different variety of protection.
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165174
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I break your flesh
and make music
on the harp of your bones.
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165096
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It hangs unspoken in the sadness he pushes through his harmonica, while his hands work the old, beat-up guitar that tries to be a Gibson for his fingertips.
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165000
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Everybody knew Billy Miller. He had messy hair and crooked teeth that he hid behind a thin-lipped smile. He and his friend Jimmy Rodgers, who everyone called Cock on account of his red hair that stuck up like a comb, were inseparable. They liked to ste
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165021
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Slipshod shoes were the first sign of a meltdown. Sometimes she could see it coming. A prickly gentleman washing his clothes on a Thursday afternoon. One week he’s fine. Nothing wrong with owning a sour face. The next Thursday, his shoes don’t match.
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165021
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The story itself is not much longer than a snippet. What is a snippet anyway?
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165052
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Maybe this very short story is about shyness. Maybe. I'm not sure.
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165010
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I was shooting baskets in the driveway when the Mexican kid delivered the groceries. He drove in fast and loud . . .
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165062
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All I wanted to do was lay in his smell, I had missed him and didn’t know it before now. He got up to urinate at one point and his absence was obscene to me.
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165000
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"Look at the grime on those curtains. Not fit for an Emperor. Pull them down. Put up fresh new ones. Not a spot."
"Oh! Look at this throne. All uneven legs. The gems are not shining. The gold looks dull. Fix it, fix it, fix it!"
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1650128
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1650188
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The cloudless sky/
amplifies the incompletion,/
clarifies the imperfections/
of the night’s normalcy-
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164933
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