Short Fiction

Half My Life
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She was quiet. I was just about to ask jokingly if she'd gone to sleep when she said my name. Her voice low. A chill ripped through me. "Yeah?"
    "Do you like your job?"
    "It's . . . big, Caity," I said. "It's like any job, you can't like it all the time. And when it feels like my life sometimes, I tell myself you can't like your life all the time either."

Music
"And what kind of lesson are you teaching him about responsibility?" raved Ellen. "What kind of example are you?"

Change
It was nature as nature intended. This awed Finn. The sky was allowed not to be clear and all the colours of the rainbow but dim and foggy. Trees fell and were never hauled away. Beavers built dams that weren't torn out by river societies. Things were allowed to be inconvenient, ugly, dead.
    Tonight, though, he was joined by human company. In silence at his left elbow stood his wife, Dustie.[...] Dustie didn't understand. She looked around at the loose twigs like she'd looked at the empty plastic cups following their wedding reception.

Snow in Africa
We rode the bus to the Cavendish shore and collected shells. My jean cuffs got wet but she'd worn cute little flowered knee-length pants. Back at the hotel, she tacked holes through some of the shells and strung them together and glued the rest to a Styrofoam ball from a craft shop. We slept in separate beds and shared a bathroom; we were used to this.
    In the diner off of the lobby, after an eight-o'clock wake-up call, we sipped coffee and chewed on buttered rolls while awaiting our complimentary breakfast.
    "Let's go back," she blurted.

The Ugly Side
The store was indeed unusually bare, many items having been removed whole by the thieves or in pieces by the janitor. Her heart ached at the sight of the crystal vase, proudly upright and untainted in its self-made circle of flattened carpet.
    Not entirely untainted, as it turned out. When Cady slipped behind the counter, a notice caught her eye. 'Catherine—Please print signs for these items as damaged merchandise, 60% off, All Sales Final. Thanks, Julie.' The vase was listed; a Mary Magdalene had suffered the amputation of the largest toe on her left foot, so that her sandal now cradled four long, slender digits and a chipped stump. Obediently Cady drew up the sign, black felt- tipped pen on cheerful pink paper, and strung it like a noose around the vase, a scarlet letter wounding its worth.

Nameless
He would set her body aflame, night after night, having crept in to do so and always creeping out just as silently afterward, after she had allowed sleep to take her from his arms.

Not Tomorrow
The woman he loved was flooding his every sense: through the darkness, he could see the glitter of her brown eyes; her laugh cut through the calls of the birds and the breaking of the waves on the rocky beach; his face was tickled by her breath and her hair snaking at the wind's command....

Minutes
Rather than a veil, she had set a silver tiara atop her head. Only it wasn't real silver, as Byron knew it had been given to her three years ago as a gag gift from her mother. It had been purchased in the child's section of an accessories store, plastic coated in reflective silver paint and adorned with small gold jewels lining its crescent and three pale pink jewels on the points of its crown. It, like her hair, sparkled in the sun.

The Box
The box, whose contents I would be ten minutes freeing from the layers upon layers of paper and plastic and tape my dear boyfriend customarily found funny to wrap things in.

Last Evening
Stephanie had offered to let him spend the night. Tiredly, the two had trudged upstairs to her bedroom, Joel lounging on her king-sized bed while she gathered pillows and blankets to make a temporary bed of the couch in her room. Having finished the task, she had stretched out beside him on her bed, and a sleepy conversation was stricken between the two. Between that moment and the one in which their physical exchange began, the time-line of events became fuzzy in Joel's mind.

Solitary Confinement
Nobody understands. That my greatest fear is hurting people. Nobody understands because it looks ironic in the face of all I've done. But I've been hurt all my life. I hate that feeling. Feeling like less than shit. How could I impose that feeling on someone else?! Does anyone not see the logic of that? I would never willingly hurt another human being. It was necessary, a necessary evil. I had to do it. I had to. They would have hurt me more. I can't stand to hurt any more!

Crash
There lay his question like an obstacle in the way. The one he dared not ask, fearing that the answer he would get would not be the answer he wanted.

Trying
"He was beating me twice a day by this point in our relationship."
    "Shut up, whore," snarled Nick. . . .
    "Why did you beat Bridget?" demanded Terry of Nick, softly, fearfully.
    Nick was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he confessed finally. . . .

Out of the Blue
As the mirror swung upward, though, she caught a flash of dark motion in the parking lot. . . . She turned in her seat and peered hard through the rear window. Despite its caked-on layer of dust and mud, the glass was clean enough to cement her suspicion. . . . She jerked free of her seatbelt and threw open the door of her car. . . . Her platform sandals clapped loudly against the pavement as she tore across the parking lot at full speed. She could hear the taunts and jeers of the three older boys growing louder. . . .

Let Him Sleep
He looked so peaceful lying there beside her....

Open
"Are you a lesbian?"
    This time, Dyan's snort was audible, and very much so. "Yes. And before you run home to tell everyone you know that you narrowly escaped such a so-called creepy person, let it be known that I don't find you all that attractive." Her voice was icy, each word carrying its own biting tone as it was hurled from her mouth like a freshly-sharpened dart.
    Predictably, the girl's eyebrows hiked up—but not in an expression of fear or intimidation, Dyan realized with substantial disappointment. "Huh. Pretty, intelligent, and sarcastic," she mused. . . .

You Don't Understand
God knows, I loved you dearly. But the only two ways I saw of solving my problem were to rob you of the one thing of which you deprived me, or to make it so you would never be able to tempt me again. And you know I'm not a violent person. . . .

About That
She asked of me softly, "How can you honestly not remember?"

Gone
The hour that separates their lives has stretched to accommodate another million years, and the four feet of space in the hall is vaster than the blackness of space.