Genuine, Hand-Crafted, Finest-Quality Fiction

Genuine, Hand-Crafted Fiction

Short-short stories (under 1500 words)

A day for the right brain, not a day to waste! Colors will sing to me, today, to me today; right brain, light brain, bright brain, and colors will sing today.

The Woman Who Used to Live in the Mirror

It was the first time I'd ever gone anywhere in a dress. When I got home, there she was, looking back at me from the mirror. She wasn't me, but she couldn't exist without me, either. We both knew that.

Short stories (under 7500 words)

The Blood of the Covenant

Some have said that the Romans gave him a sponge soaked in vinegar. Those who spread this tale have done so to discredit the Romans. In fact, this is not what happened.

One Small Step on the Road to Damascus

Paul felt his mind splatter against his forehead. How do I love me? Let me count the ways. Living through the next minute; that would be one way.

We Have Met the Alien

The spaceship sat in a pasture behind the carnival, where the radio said it had crashed during the night. The debris trailed off into a maple grove, like the scattering of yellows and reds that was beginning to show among the leaves.

Novellettes (under 12,500 words)

Paying Up for Jimmy

Jimmy walks out the outhouse door, and behind him the wall goes up in flames. That was on Tuesday.

The Second Battle of Pea Ridge

Why, just the other day someone had tried to get in, or maybe they had got in, after all; it took her and Jake almost a day to find her keys again, and whoever it was that broke in must have been the one that hid them.

Novel Fragments: These pieces come from a collection of things I worked on for a while, with a working title of The Deoxyribonucleic Tango. They might someday make it into one or more complete works. They might not.

By the Pond

This isn't my sport. George, now, George is good at this; four skips is normal for him, and I've seen him skip as many as eight times on a single throw.

A Shadow of Herself (1)

Lynn sat in the shadows in a corner of Michel's apartment, a black figure huddled in darkness. The setting sun poured through the window above her, filling even shadow with a little of its amber warmth.

A Shadow of Herself (2)

She turned onto Hillsborough near the east end of the Hump, across from a nightclub called The Orifice. A corridor of rippling thighs led to its entrance, ending in shimmering labia.

My voice is an aged harpy who cuddles into my neck, digging her filthy claws down to the bone. I feed her live snakes from the nightmares of my past. In return, she whispers lies in my ear and shits on my shoulder.

Everyone can see her except me, she tells me. I believe her. Everyone knows the truth of her lies except me, she says. What can I say in return?

I don't write what she tells me. I have my own lies to tell. Her lies are the world in which my lies struggle to survive.