Category: short stories
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Fragments We Remember
When I got home from the night shift that morning, there was nothing out of place. Nothing strange. I put my keys on the little dish. They rattled. I made dinner (breakfast), ate it, took a shower, put on a nightgown, pulled the curtains, read until I fall asleep. Dreamed something. When I got home…
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The Dancer and the Shattered Shell
It’s like this when dark comes: you get inside. The rule is simple and absolute. Anna is running late after she finishes her audition. The auditorium doors close behind her and lock. The auditors will be there all night — but dancers can’t stay while they deliberate. It’s 5:42pm on a late winter evening. She’s…
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An Encounter
The boy read an article about a lake with a thousand skeletons somewhere in the Himalayas. He’s never been to the Himalayas, though his father once climbed Everest. He never imagined he would see a skeleton beneath the ice, but here one is, caught in the weeds by the shore of the lake. He stands…
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A Crack Appears
The treadmill stands in my living room, no matter what. So far, it’s moved three times with me. First thing I do when I wake up, first thing I do when I get home, and the last thing I do before going to bed is run. Run, stretch, run, stretch. It’s the only way I…
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Method Acting
Allison Beeman was cast as Agatha Christie’s septuagenarian mystery-solver Miss Jane Marple, in A Murder is Announced, at the ripe old age of twenty-two. Something about Allison’s wispy blonde hair, pale skin, and fragile bone structure spoke, “Seventy year old,” to the director of the Center for Performing Arts. (It could also have been that…
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Cicadas
The year is 1888 and you have not been in this much pain since being grazed by a Confederate bullet in 1865. That time, you battled through, knowing what was wrong. This time, the ache is a long-standing mystery. You tell the doctor, when he finally arrives, that your shoulder is immobile. You are unable…
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Chalk Outlines
Around one a.m., after the third time I’ve woken from restless dreams, I stare at the ceiling and think “I am done with true crime shows.” Normally, I know that I’ve hit my quota of true crime when I start mentally narrating my day in the True Crime Voice. That morning started like any other,…
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Somewhere North of a Border
My husband, finally irritated with me, tells me to leave him alone while he finishes changing the tire. I am happy to do so. Leaving the smell of hot rubber behind is a blessing. He’s doing it wrong anyway, so this is going to take a while. We took a wrong turn off a New…
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A Shooting
As I’m waiting to go up to the choir stands, a girl from the middle school asks me how I ended up in a wheelchair. There’s no malice in her question, no insult. She’s just curious. There’s a small ramp put in just for me, just for this occasion on the school football field. The…
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Juniper
In the light of day, six months ago, when she bought the house, the bushes seemed lovely. Charming hedgerows, grown six feet high, provided privacy and a fence of sorts. A wrought-iron gate, only three feet high, filled a gap between the bushes and blocked off the cracking walkway to solicitors. Sure, the brown grass…