Mr. Jenkins disliked me on sight. That was surprising. I’m as pleasant as the next guy, and he couldn’t see well.
“I can smell a Jap a mile away,” he said. “How I survived.”
I ignored the slur. “Ready for your walk, sir?” [Read more…] about On the Burma Road
Gwen wanted to reset the relationship.
“Is there a button we push?” I asked.
We were in Nick’s, in a back booth, pound-jars of PBR on the table between us. Gwen studied her beer as hard as I’d ever seen her study anything. “It’s not working,” she said.
“I think it is.”
“Just stop it, okay? Stop pretending.”
“Pretending?”
“That you love me. I’m not dumb.”
“I never—”
“Loved me?”
“Thought you were dumb.”
“Lair!”
I started to object, but saw there was no point.
Instead, I pressed my thumb on the table-top.
Gwen smiled.
“Push hard. Sometimes it sticks.”
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #348 at Velvet Verbosity.
Mom wants to take Jason to the faith healer who’s appearing nightly in a limited engagement at the Westgate Auditorium.
“There’s no such thing as faith healing,” I say.
“He’s dying,” she says.
Like I don’t know that. Like anybody wouldn’t know that who sees Jason in the hospital bed in her living room, a lump of bony flesh, each breath a whimper. My brother, who fought in Iraq, who ran marathons, who had a bright future until the Big C tapped him on the shoulder. You’re it!
I want to ask Mom when she got religion.
But I know.
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #347 at Velvet Verbosity.
Looks good, don’t he? Like he could sit up and tell a story. Ol’ Terry knew a few! He wanted to write, you know. No, I never saw him with the arm, either. Yeah. In the war. The Hürtgen Forest, 1944. Same day he crossed paths with Hemingway. Sure, the author! Funny story. Terry’s hugging the ground and he looks up. There’s Hemingway standing by the road, tree-splinters flying everywhere. The guy next to Terry yells, “Get down, you crazy bastard!” A shell comes in, and boom! It takes out the guy and Terry’s arm. ‘Course, he told it better.
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #346 at Velvet Verbosity.
“Ship, tell me a story,” the traveler commanded.
“Long or short, sir?” asked a disembodied contralto.
“Short. I grow sleepy.”
“Happy? Sad?”
“Happy. I desire a pleasant hibernation.”
“Very well. There once was a gentle woman who loved a man from Autumn World.”
“I hail from Autumn World!”
“Indeed, he had your dark looks and cruel smile.”
“Cruel smile? Ship, are you joking?”
“Alas, he abandoned her to marry another.”
“Stop! I ordered a happy story.”
“In her despair, she joined the Phoenix Corps, and was reborn a starship.”
“A starship? Which starship?”
The air chilled.
“Happy dreams, my love.”
“Ship” was published by 101Fiction, now defunct, as the lead story in the September 2013 issue. The goal for the issue was to write a 100-word science fiction or fantasy story with a one-word title, using the themes of “autumn” and/or “phoenix.”
He was a peasant, a man of the soil. Or so he claimed.
She never believed him. He owned a farm house, but someone else owned the barn and fields. His hands were huge and strong, but sensitive. A potter’s hands.
“You’re an artist,” she said. “Admit it.”
They were in bed, katydids singing through the window screens.
“Don’t call me that, girl.”
“I could call you worse.”
“Yes. An old artist.”
“No! I wouldn’t!”
His hands were on her, transforming her indignation, and they kissed.
Out beyond the barn and the fields that were not theirs, heat lightening flickered.
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #345 at Velvet Verbosity.