Fiction

When Rory goes out to attend the funeral, he leaves me alone with the dark garden and this pile of hardbacks in my lap. I am concentrating so hard on…

I pull to a stop behind a railroad tie near the main office of Avian Sutter. A middle-aged woman crouching by a pile of logs stands to face me. She…

I heard a knock at my door. On the front step stood a short dark-haired woman, around forty-five, wearing a sports coat and a wide striped tie. “Yes?” She held out…

I pull my gyrfalcon, Helios, off of Noel’s rooster before he can break its neck. I’d thought the rooster dead initially but remembered that Helios was still fat and his…

I’m eating breakfast in the dining hall when the screen door bangs open. Marlon, the Camp High Pines swimming counselor, saunters over in his customary outfit of flip flops, white…

The day the wolf appeared in her kitchen, she went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. The wolf sank down on its skinny haunches, lifted its…

“This all looks very good, Mr. Epping,” said the worn man in the similarly worn brown leather chair as the tip of his nose peaked the sheet of paper Jackson…

When he found out, the details of it eluded Marty. He only knew that his daughter, Hannah, was playing hooky while he was in up to his elbows at work,…

I notice the dead bird on my way back from the grocery store. When I see his body splayed on the pavement, one wing bent snaking away from him, I…

Image Credit: Holly Birtles, C1 Monsters Isle of Grain, Digital c-type print (2020)    hollybirtles.com You should not bother to read this. You should likely close this book, and put it…

* * * They arrive a few minutes earlier than anticipated, deviating from the embossed schedule that sits crumpled within my hand. The sound of them slicing across the horizon…

They were reading again. They were reading, and they were waiting. Waiting by the lake. “Lacuna” they read aloud, “Latin for a missing book, or a cavity in bone.” They…

Through the window I can see clear across the alley into the apartment facing mine. Mrs. Finch reclines in her armchair by the window, a hand raised in greeting. Rain…

Stone Cold Plumbers  During the first week of the second month at our new house, the sewer line busted. We were forced to use the bathroom at a nearby Dunkin…