Stories

The Bike
The Pigeon Review
The bike lay abandoned alongside the railroad tracks, way out in Rattlesnake City, a field no one dared venture out into unless they had to, or if they were drunk and had lost their way, and those that did venture out oftentimes got snake-bit. In other words, it was a bad place for a bike …

The Killer Instinct
What We Talk About When We Talk About It Volume 2 (Darkhouse Books)
Carleen had just drained the dish water when she spotted Bud’s coffee cup atop the ice box. Time and again she had told her husband to bring his cup to the sink once he was through with it, but there it was, all the way across the room. She wanted to kill him …

Shine
Avalon Literary Review (Fall 2020)
“Don’t push, don’t push yet,” Mama says, looking at me. Looking at me down there. But I don’t care where she looks, not now, with my insides on fire. “Don’t push yet,” she says again, but the look in her eyes says something different — something she has said before. What she has said for months now …

What Has Robbie Done
Fiction Silicon Valley
Ted checked his watch: 9:35. The meeting with the principal was at 10. Better to get there early, so he grabbed the car keys from the kitchen counter and called “Anna–time to go” but was careful not to sound impatient. His wife got flustered by impatience …

Boy in the Van
Waccamaw
(Also performed by Play On Words)
The French boy had hair the color of wet sand. Not beach sand, but desert sand …

Snake
Switchback
It is July 13, 2003, and I am about to run over a snake …

So Many Shoes
Fine Linen Magazine
My project will never be complete. So many shoes. I find them in abandoned homes and looted stores, and bring them here to fill the sidewalks …

Return of the Son
NonBinary Review
Mary lives at the end of the garden path. She is my only friend these days. But what she said yesterday — I didn’t like that. Perhaps we shouldn’t discuss our sons. You know how it is, when mothers talk about their children …

Soul Mate
The Ottawa Object
He hoped she would die today and return to him. He was so tired, waiting for her, in this so-called heaven. It was only half-heaven for him, until she returned. Until then, this place — despite its golden light and sweet aroma, despite its steady 72 degrees — didn’t seem heavenly at all …

Beyond the Fence
Rose Red Review
Mr. Wolfe didn’t tell Kate much about this particular job before sending her out. “Old guy at Woodside, already dead,” he said, pouring himself a Scotch, even though it wasn’t yet noon. “Basic processing. BTF.” But now, here at Woodside Nursing Home, Kate saw that Mr. Wolfe had been wrong. The old guy was not dead. Barely alive, hardly breathing, nothing but a lump under a thin gray blanket, but not dead. Which explained the photograph still propped up on the nightstand …

Monster on the Loose
Wild Age Press
To be out of the attic for just a little while. It is all you think of, each long, lonely day. Midnight is the best time for it. By then, the doctor has finished his notes, smoked his second bowl of opium and is asleep in the armchair near the fire …

Don’t Mind the Vet
Blotterature
The mobile made of armadillo bones rattled in the stiff cold breeze at the window. Bettina looked past it to the dirt hills dotted with sage brush, silver with frost. Cold morning outside, but hot in here, even with the window partly open, the mesquite logs in the small fireplace filling the whole house with their sweet warmth …

Elephant
Dragonfly Press
I never should have gone out with Gary Ricter. I told myself, after the divorce, that I was done with all that — dating men. And wearing make-up. And shaving my legs. The whole thing. Forty-eight years old, a failed marriage behind me. Two grown daughters and a grandson. No need to start on a new adventure …

That’ll Do the Trick
Marathon Review
David’s hand shook as he put the razor against Grandpa’s throat. “Hold still now,” he muttered, embarrassed that his words smelled like morning breath — again — and reminding himself — again— that he should always brush his teeth before shaving Grandpa in the morning …

A Big Gift
Watershed Review
Past midnight, just as the planet Jupiter peeked from behind the willow tree outside her window, Cassie heard Freddy stirring in the room next to hers, shifting and sighing, unable to get back to sleep …