Posts Tagged ‘fiction’
Fiction: eulogies
You have a boyfriend, my old boss. I have a fiancé. But here we are, in the old park by the woods, first time in years. We used to park your father’s station wagon by the jungle gym at dusk and lie on the lumber stacked in back, warming each other’s hands while snowfall built […]
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Tags: fiction, short story
Unstuck
Last year, between two novel projects and an extended short story (huh?), I wrote about 35,000 words of unmitigated garbage. During that time, I gave up writing short stories, which had been my focus since 2006. I finished ‘An Officer and Some Gentleman,’ my last finished short piece, in November 2010. Tonight, under the influence […]
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Tags: chronic city, fiction, Jonathan Lethem, Spokane
Done Again
After chasing her lazy eye in one direction and feeling the stab of her glare from her functioning hazel orb, I locked my gaze firmly on the clerk’s forehead: a bulbous monster resembling the front of a sperm whale. All I had asked for was the truth, a request which upset her immensely. It sent […]
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Tags: fiction
In search of a cliff
Silence and snow on the city block. You can object to the weather but never exact revenge: Mother Nature’s pistol is loaded tonight. I stumble over the boots of a homeless man. His cardboard sign (they always have one) reads Will Educate for Food. No thanks, Padre. Besides, you’re sleeping peacefully. And I have this […]
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Tags: fiction
An officer and some gentleman
Don’t fuck it up.
I won’t fuck it up.
Seriously. Don’t.
I won’t.
Grab the tail and help me push him in.
How do you know it’s a him?
It’s a him. Didn’t you look?
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Tags: fiction, J.A. O'Sullivan
voyage to the sun
By J.A. O’Sullivan The lights go out just as I’ve pulled my free LED keychain light from a package of beef jerky. Serendipity, must be, until I discover the light is a lemon. Its only redeeming value now is to scent my keys like peppered meat. The lights are out. I can’t see. It’s noon: […]
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Tags: 3ww, beef jerky, fiction, layoffs, short story
click, stare, regret
After the daily grind, I turn on the boob tube 2.0 [that's the internet, for all ya'll know-nothings] for inspiration. Click. Sports: another ball player flush with ‘roid rage. Click. News: another plane crashes into another mountain [do rocks feel pain?], another bad day on Wall Street [how bad could it be, really?], another non-sex […]
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Tags: click, fiction, lit, porn, short story
the reinvention of fireworks
Earlier, he’d been dreaming up ad jingles. Oil: graffiti for the ocean, was his favorite. Another, Black stuff only a dead seagull could love, he liked while admitting it didn’t make any particular sense. There was a third suitable slogan, but it was now forgotten as he approached the shore. He had decided to throw […]
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Tags: fiction, fireworks, J.A. O'Sullivan, oil, short story
psyche strung
Psychic chickenwire. As Gary strung the cds in lines across the balcony, that’s what filled his mind. He wondered what a bird would think when it saw a trillion sunbeams shooting from Metallica’s Black album. Say you prayers, little one. Nothing if not organized, Gary classified each row by genre. Rap and hip-hop, jazz, punk, […]
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Tags: fiction, J.A. O'Sullivan, psyhic
The Yin-Yang Angle
The florescent-lit room, stale with deodorant, echoed in its emptiness the low hum of central air. Robert Rigo picked up a 45 llb dumbbell with his left hand and a 30 llb with his right. Heaving breath into the mirror opposite him, Robert completed eight curls with each arm in quick form, then continued another […]
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Tags: fiction, gym, short story, weights
