Category Archives: FICTION

FICTION (1000 WORDS OR MORE)

Help Our Neighbors Who Are On Fire

Help Our Neighbors Who Are On Fire

FICTION by

She stood over him, naked as the moon. I had never seen her like that. Her skin looked hot and fluid under that weak light, like the skin of some Greek snake goddess we’d learned about in school. I couldn’t tell where she ended and the shadows began.more

The Death Collector

The Death Collector

FICTION by

Death in a bag. Makes no sense, you say? Why would anyone want to have anything to do with death? For that matter, why would anyone want to carry death around with them? But it makes sense. It does. It makes an awful lot of sense, if you think about it. more

Calling the Boys Home

Calling the Boys Home

FICTION by

Teddy and I have grown up together here on the Pee Dee. But Teddy left about a month ago for Clemson University. Said he was going to study agriculture and come back to help his daddy. He will be back. This place is like a boomerang. Shoots you out into the world, but you get slung right on back.more

Goodbye Blue Monday

Goodbye Blue Monday

FICTION by

Even though it’s irrational, for some reason, Jake wants to blame his mother. As if her bad energy and DNA linger off him like a scent that attracts predators.more

Little Miss Hampton Beach

Little Miss Hampton Beach

FICTION by

I am late to seeing this beauty and art in violence, too late, thinking boxing barbaric, dumb, reckless. I myself not being able to imagine why anyone would want to do something where they were set up to get hurt repeatedly, to get hurt and hurt and do it again. Can you find truth there somewhere?more

Deseret

Deseret

FICTION by

I go to bed dreaming I’m riding a giant electric razor like a mechanical bull in a field of alfalfa at dusk. Clouds smear across the night sky like drunken Bob Ross brush strokes. Just as everything goes black, a beam of light descends upon me. Is it an angel? Is it the razor police, and are my razor-riding days numbered?more

Meds

Meds

FICTION by

I’m too young to be demented and too old to be psychotic, at least for the first break. And my hearing, I’d recently checked, was still normal for my age, not a rousing endorsement, but hanging in there.more

Tamsulosin

Tamsulosin

FICTION by

“Have a great weekend,” the pharmacy tech says and I look down at my recycled bag with a month’s supply of Tamsulosin in a sack with bran cereal and unsweetened coconut milk and reconcile her statement with the times I’d heard it while toting bags of chips and 30 packs of Genny Cream, then walk a few steps from the pharmacy counter and linger because John Cougar Mellencamp has just come on overhead.more

Other Than, Person

Other Than, Person

FICTION by

Hole punched through the roof and a gunner’s mount bolted on, allowing a junior Marine to poke his head out and swivel around behind a big ass gun. Close to a hundred pounds and barrel almost four feet long. Teenagers with that kind of firepower make a lot of dick jokes.more

The Day After Easter, Atlantic City, 2024

The Day After Easter, Atlantic City, 2024

FICTION by

When she shook him in the bed, she knew right away: this was no sleep. No, this was something more serious than sleep. This was death. Heavy as a bear.more