Jim the Writer

a literary blog

short story

Last Call

By

Larry told her before last call. “Your brother’s dead.”  Just like that.

Janay sagged against the bar.

“You OK?”

“For a bartender, you got shitty people-skills.”

“Take off, why don’t you.”

She shook her head. “He said he was invincible. I guess he believed it.”

Janay finished the shift. Later, her mother was predictable. “They shot him in the street,” she said. “Like a dog.”

“I never saw a dog shot.  How they do that?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“He didn’t deserve to be done that way.”

Janay wasn’t sure what he deserved.

“We gotta get out of here,” she said.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #352 at Velvet Verbosity.

Mr. Anonymous

By

She returned to the table after the drinks arrived. George smiled. Perfect timing.

“I’ve been dreaming about this all day,” she said, dropping the lime wedge into her gin-and-tonic. Then she looked at George and laughed. “Do I sound like a lush?”

“You sound like a woman who knows what she wants.”

“I wish!”

She sipped her drink.

What a lovely throat. He could feel his fingers closing around it.

“This isn’t Tanqueray!”

George rocked back. Before he could speak, she was up, marching toward the bar, glass in hand.

He swore, then hurried for the door and the night.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #351 at Velvet Verbosity.

The Reset Button

By

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.

Nor the Battle to the Strong

By

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.

The Cross Roads

By

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.