Category Archives: Fiction

Use your words

Posted on by February 25, 2020

This is how the advice sounds when I’m exasperated. It’s not fair at all, because one of the things about Asperger’s for my kids is that it makes the path from idea to vocal cord very cumbersome indeed, and one of those concepts that I have to explain regularly is, “The words in your heart don’t reach my ears if you don’t use your mouth.” But it’s been a “Use your words” kind of weekend around here, and so I give you the advice I all but shouted to my children earlier today. (Parenting fail.)

Thanks for letting me vent, Trifecta.… Read the rest

Home

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I have no sense of direction. Give me a map, and I’ll lose you without fail. Ask me how to get somewhere, and I’ll write you a novel. “To reach my neighborhood, turn left off the Boulevard at the Liberty station, then take all the whoop-dees  until you see my messy yard. You can’t miss it.”

And yet I know, unerringly, where I am in relationship to my mother’s house. Right now, it’s five hundred miles away over my right shoulder. If I go to the kitchen, it’s sort of off my left side,  but angled back to the right. I wouldn’t trust this sense to lead me out of so much as a brushy thicket.… Read the rest

Balls

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Kelly rubbed the bandage on her right leg and winced. She had no spare energy to heal the wound. She hated this stretch of 331, where there were no streetlights between podunk towns, and every reflection might be him. Hell, for all she knew, every reflection was him. He managed to infect everything. In back, Amber shifted in her carseat and Luna hummed with the radio.

“Mom, stop.”

“What, Luna?”

“He’s ten miles ahead.”

“You’re sure?”

Luna didn’t answer. Kelly didn’t know why she had asked.

There was a chance to change course, head for Destin instead of Pensacola. But he surely knew that, too.… Read the rest

Hope Was

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I shut down the computer twice, but the e-mail didn’t vanish. It’s been four days now, and it still hasn’t gone away. My world is aslant. The editor wrote; she wants my book.

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For the voting public, that last compound sentence probably invalidates the 33 words of first person narrative. Although I am still technically writing in the first person, I have stepped slightly outside to make generic observations. Possibly, it’s still considered appropriate or close enough for country, since the two third person statements (“The editor wrote; she wants…”) are actually my observations. But it’s too esoteric. I think it’s fair game to enter, but vote for someone else, someone who isn’t blowing their own horn, K?… Read the rest

Rise Above

Posted on by February 25, 2020

The Pascagoula River ran into its banks as if the Gulf of Mexico had oozed narrow fingers inland. At the I-10 rest stop, tourists bound for New Orleans debarked and snapped photos of each other and the muddy water.

A woman complained, “I don’t know why we stopped here; we’ve got toilets.”

“Grab a snack. Look at the bayou.” The driver walked towards the men’s room.

At the far corner of the building, an old man in a heavy coat shouted. “Repent!” He brandished a Bible like a weapon. “How shall you answer when He calls your name?”

He had an audience of one, a dark haired woman in short sleeves and jeans who had not arrived on the bus.… Read the rest

Sam’s Lament

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“Let’s break this down, Sam. Caroline didn’t play Wii on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. It’s Friday, and she has had five minutes. That’s not the longest turn in the history of forever.”

 

 

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This weekend, Trifextra is Over The Top…or they want us to be anyhow.

… Read the rest

What the Cat Saw

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Yes, I’m sorry, this one has backstory. Not much. And it makes sense out of context. But if you want to know how we got here,

Start with this one

Then read this one

And then go here

Then proceed with this week’s entry

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“What’s your name, child?” The queen picked up a kitten and settled it on her lap as she sat on the bed.

“Pickles.” The girl squirmed and turned her head to sneeze.

“Well… Pickles, what does the Wizard Deen do for you?” The kitten began climbing her majesty’s dress.

“Bed, two meals, sometimes three a day.… Read the rest

Hope is

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Hope is the yawning mouth of the river. It gathers desire, expectation, and disappointment into a single current. It binds me into a place where my stomach growls and my throat swells. Hope is a jailer whose prison pretends to sunshine.  It holds out bright open spaces and blinding joy, but it denies revelry. It builds its box one ray at a time, until the light is painful. It burns me until my skin is scalded.

Hope is every childhood nightmare. It is the feeling of running away from the monster down the street of faceless houses. It is the certainty of escape that crashes against the pursuing evil rounding that final corner.… Read the rest

Dead Rock Stars

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Jimi Hendrix shifted his weight on my couch and jabbed at his gums with a toothpick.

From the kitchen, John Lennon called, “Anybody else want a cuppa?”

Janis Joplin took a drag on a round kazoo and blew smoke rings to the ceiling. “John, you have to come back in here. You need to. You’ve got to come back in here.”

“Ever see Star Wars?” John and his cuppa nearly tripped over the dog in the kitchen doorway. “Whoosh, buzz, bap, crack.” He waved an imaginary light saber.

Janis shook her head.

“Died too soon.” Jimi threw his toothpick behind the couch.… Read the rest

Drink from the burning well

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“There are two types of adultery.” Jillian poured the coffee and added a generous amount of cream to her own. She brought the cups to the table.

Sarah looked up for the first time to take hers. “You’re justifying.” She reached for the artificial sweetener.

“No. It’s got to do with intentions. Are you dabbling? Or is this the final act of an already broken union?”

“There’s no difference.” Sarah sipped, but flinched against the heat and spit back into the mug.

Jillian added two spoons of sugar. “Consider me. Blaine was trapped in a toxic marriage when we met. Our relationship motivated him to end it.”… Read the rest