Short Fiction and Poetry

Tara lay lifeless in her bed. The overcast evening sky taunted her, for it was nearly time to go to work. [...]

Fleeing to the New World was supposed to bring safety.  That hope proved to be a cruel deception. [...]

The manager of Rusterman’s Restaurant is much annoyed when Wendy, the new hostess, interrupts him [...]

We strong-armed our stepma. Halloween is all about blackmail when you’re ten years old. Gimme a treat or I’ll play a trick on you [...]

Doug Byrne’s store, between Cundy’s Harbor and Five Islands, is a ramshackle Downeast  barn. Some years ago, he painted the place white[...]

I had been looking closely at the property section of the local newspaper. We both wanted to move house that summer. [...]

After seven days of intolerable confinement, Izzy decided that this foggy afternoon was the right time to free herself. [...]

It was a fitting name, Rolling Vistas, situated on the edge of a picturesque town near the sprawling Shawnee National Forest. [...]

I am in the doctor’s examining room asking for the impossible. I tell him I have a sickness, a duplicate disease [...]

An alligator-sighting in the woods causes a stir on campus. Some say they’ve seen it basking in the sun outside Dean Lontmeiser’s office[..]

He clumsily stumbled into a tree, catching himself before collapsing into a forest of dreams. His mind was in a haze [...]

Dressed in a tattered green cagoule and oversized yellow boots, Mister Whistler cut a peculiar figure. [...]

Bennie turned from Kai to hide her glee. Her pulse quickened. She stayed silent and awaited the push, the pressure.  [...]

“I like the touch of the cool sheets when we get into bed,” the man had said on the first of many nights. The city lights were shining [...]

When I lived with my parents, our house was next to a cemetery. My father claimed it was cheaper to live near the dead than the living [...]

“Samuel Brown. You killed me.” Samuel Brown woke up from a dead sleep and banged his head on the overturned rowboat [...]

The parking lot princess sits on her bench perched in the middle of the parking lot, with large suitcases bookending the bench. [...]

My roommate, Abioye Ogundipe, was both an idealist and stubborn. Those qualities could be viewed as admirable. [...]

He does not understand why the white heron, that dream-like thing, is there wherever he walks in the canyon [...]

I have my grandfather’s ruby ring. It is wrapped in a tiny manilla envelope, tucked in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. [...]