Category Archives: Short stories

Where It’s At

Posted on by February 25, 2020

 

Club Aqua burned on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning, the DJ and bartender were celebrities. Val, the DJ, wasn’t pleased. “I didn’t do anything,” she protested.

But Larry the bartender disagreed. “Listen, that whole fucking ceiling was coming in, and you was standing out on the floor directing traffic just like you was calling a square dance or something. If you hadn’t had your shit together, those people would have flipped out and stampeded. We’d all be dead.”

“OK, I wasn’t the one carrying people out on my goddamned shoulders,” Val snapped. “All I did was tell people where to find the doors.… Read the rest

Blue

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Rachael crunched through the yard. A pinecone, crunch. Dead leaves, double crunch. Her feet on the ground sounded like her teeth when she bit into a ripe, crisp apple. When she tired of crunching, she decided to swing. Kick up, lean back; tuck feet, lean forward. It seemed backwards to her that she should lean back to move her body forward and lean forward to move her body back.  But her Daddy said life was backwards sometimes. She had tried to do it the other way, leaning forward to go up and back to go down, but she didn’t go much of anywhere.… Read the rest

Cow in the road

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I spent my childhood chasing other people’s cows. The farmers who rented our fields were supposed to keep up the fences, but they never did. And the cows never got out during the day. No, they escaped at midnight or two AM, so that we all had to scramble out of bed looking for feed when someone banged on the door. And I slept downstairs, so I always heard the knock.

I hated those cows. I wanted them to die. But, especially once we bought the house and land, a wreck would have been on our insurance. While Mom tried to raise the cow’s owner, I tramped up State Route 286 in my nightgown chanting, “Come on cow, stupid cow, gonna get us both killed cow.”  … Read the rest