When I was a child our family lived along a different stretch of muddy shore. At that shore’s edge a bright, golden temple stood in the water.
Leaving Behind the Golden Temple [Fiction]
fiction
The Vanishing of M. Renoir [Fiction]
The last time I saw Monsieur Renoir, he was sitting beneath an umbrella at a sidewalk cafe in Paris, leisurely drinking coffee and glancing through a newspaper.
The Crossing [Fiction]
We fell in love when I was 17 and Pieter was 18. He was the Belgian exchange student at my high school in Los Angeles. He was tall, elegant, with a thick mane of dark hair and a dreamy Flemish accent. He spoke four languages; he floored me with his brilliance and effervescence.
Lesson Plan of the Beleaguered Teacher [Flash Fiction]
With the Big Test™ just two weeks away, we need to make sure you can answer any multiple choice questions on the three branches of government. So please get out your history textbook, open it to page sixty-four...
L.A Story: The New Neighbors [Fiction]
"how come their barking is so hoarse?" “I lasered their vocal chords. Too many complaints from last neighbors.”
Day Off [Short Story]
Miles never would’ve imagined that tonight his life would be on the line. He was ordinary. Grab the box. Pack products. Repeat. Get paid. Sleep. Get a day off in between. Life was cut and dry. “Work until you die,” he’d say.
1951 [Short Story]
Charlie didn’t have the guts to rob the drugstore in Visalia. The woman behind the counter reminded him of his mother—what a chump. His truck needed gas, oil, a new carburetor. No sweat. Now he could buy a brand-new Cadillac.
Charlie nodded at the man in the Air Force uniform. The goon thought himself important in his creased pants, pressed shirt and two rows of medals on his chest. Charlie believed Roswell was a hoax, until now. Sure, he agreed. What crashed must have been a weather balloon.
The Roaches [Flash Fiction]
Everyone at the Bridge Street Hostel agreed the roaches were a problem. But most of the volunteers felt it was something they could live with. That is, until they learned to talk.
Strike Not [Short Story]
Las esperanzas engordan pero no maintienen. Hope fattens, but it doesn't keep you alive.
It turned noon as David Alvarez raised the roof of the Crusher. With short little explosive sounds, the Rambler lying in the Crusher’s bed released tension from its new shape, as if it tried to pop its bones back into its joints. The compressor topped up its pressure, and when the gauge showed right for a fast restart, David turned off the diesel.
He removed his earmuffs and hardhat, and the sound in the air flipped from deadness to singing quiet. At that moment, in the time between the crush and the removal of the metal block that had been a car, things felt preternaturally frozen. Then a woman cried out.
The Purloined Guarneri [Short Story]
Today was a harrowing day. Dozens of wounded came in every hour from fighting around Londonderry. Ciara often assisted her father Chief Surgeon Eion Ó Conchobhair during amputations. When a separated limb lay next to its owner on the operating table, she placed it down on the blood-soaked sawdust floor and quickly returned for the closure and bandaging. Three oversized zinc pails were always filled with amputated limbs; consigned later for burning. The orderlies responsible for destroying them and scouring the buckets from surgeries after the grueling day’s work, were either too busy elsewhere or laying about too drunk to care.
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