StoriesSnake
Switchback Fall 2015 It is July 13, 2003, and I am about to run over a snake ... So Many Shoes Fine Linen Magazine Summer 2015 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 June 2015 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. Sometimes things are said that shouldn't be. Once I find my cane, I'll go see Mary, and she and I will have a little chat. Perhaps then our friendship can be saved ... Soul Mate The Ottawa Object July 2015 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. Just crowded. Packed with soul mates, reuniting. All around him, the other soul mates crooned, sighed and moaned as their wounds healed and they became whole. Hearing them, seeing them — it all made his loneliness that much harder to bear. To make matters worse, the others pushed and jostled him, without apology ... Beyond the Fence Rose Red Review Spring 2015 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 March 2015 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 Winter 2015 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 January 2015 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 August 2014 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 ... |
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