Short Fiction
individual publications. for collections, see Books.
Mortar
published by The Standard Culture
After too long a time and too far a distance, Leslie returns home to help look after her ailing mother - and finds herself overcome by the suffocating heat and memories.
"Summer had always been her favorite season – it was the season for recklessness, for liberty, for an entire afternoon lost in the brambles around the park, for popsicles, for sunburns and bug bites. Summer was the season for stupidity and fireflies. Summer was her season the same as winter had always been Mom’s season, the season when she could warm mugs of cocoa, air out the quilts her grandmother had sewn, hang lights and bang out songs on the piano. But for Leslie, summer was the time to do the things that really mattered, to play hard and build forts and card houses, mud pies.
Now summer was this airless stale thing. A plywood box with nothing inside. A mosquito whining in her ear but not actually biting. Maybe there was no blood left to drink."
"Summer had always been her favorite season – it was the season for recklessness, for liberty, for an entire afternoon lost in the brambles around the park, for popsicles, for sunburns and bug bites. Summer was the season for stupidity and fireflies. Summer was her season the same as winter had always been Mom’s season, the season when she could warm mugs of cocoa, air out the quilts her grandmother had sewn, hang lights and bang out songs on the piano. But for Leslie, summer was the time to do the things that really mattered, to play hard and build forts and card houses, mud pies.
Now summer was this airless stale thing. A plywood box with nothing inside. A mosquito whining in her ear but not actually biting. Maybe there was no blood left to drink."
Episodes: a love story
published by The Biscuit
A boy met a girl. A girl met a boy. A boy loved a girl, and the girl didn't notice for a very long time. Through twenty years and seven different narrative styles, Robert and Clara dance a careful waltz.
"Robert wouldn’t look at her. 'Today you are a man, indeed.' Robert clenched his hands on the tabletop, two fists framing the unhappy boy. Clara watched him, curious and sad. Why did he suddenly seem so young to her? So young and so … so much like the little kid afraid to tell his mother he’d broken her vase. He’d filled out, of course, gotten taller, but he had the same messy almost-black hair, the same thick eyebrows that always gave his face a kind of bemused expression. 'Oh Bobbo,' she whispered, 'how young we’ve gotten.'"
"Robert wouldn’t look at her. 'Today you are a man, indeed.' Robert clenched his hands on the tabletop, two fists framing the unhappy boy. Clara watched him, curious and sad. Why did he suddenly seem so young to her? So young and so … so much like the little kid afraid to tell his mother he’d broken her vase. He’d filled out, of course, gotten taller, but he had the same messy almost-black hair, the same thick eyebrows that always gave his face a kind of bemused expression. 'Oh Bobbo,' she whispered, 'how young we’ve gotten.'"
