Strychnine Over(ride) pg2

    Adam, as his 23rd girlfriend had once observed, could be effectively described by the periodicals which he took but did not read. The Economist, for his father, so that he'd have something to discuss with a man he never called. Spin, because he couldn't take Rolling Stone seriously. The New Yorker, which he scanned for the cartoons and then ignored, for culture. Those he did read were less revealing.     Monday, Adam had a newsstand New Republic boiling in his backpack. Off the table, he kept it well out of sight while grinding down the day behind the half-wall which provided the illusion of privacy. Adam kept his desk ... (read more)

The Park Avenue Hovel, page one part 2

This goes, straightforwardly enough, between page 1 and page 2.     The house had been built on cattle speculation money, Horace Aloysius Yarbough's second fortune, after the railway came through in 1886. He'd won and lost his first fortune living out of cheap rooms south of the stockyard, but when he made the money back he'd built a cattle baron's house and transported his wife and children down from Chicago to live in it. Three floors not counting basements or attics, it included servant's quarters, two kitchens, and a set of stables and carriage-house behind it which Horace's son had converted into automobile garages and an indoor ... (read more)

Copy Book #1, page 2: the Contest

     "You can't be self-conscious. You've just gotta open up, breathe, and be natural. It's that kind of thing. If you're self-conscious, you'll choke." That was Mooney-- his real name (last)-- doing his best in-the-moment pep talk. I was staring at my watch, at the folded Tribune on the bench (two days old, making predictions about yesterday's election), at the door, pretty much anywhere but at Django. Ten minutes until showtime and I still hadn't seen the competition. It was making me edgy.   Not that I wasn't confident about our chances. Nearly six feet tall and thin as a rail, Django didn't look like much. His short blonde ... (read more)

Copy Book #1, page 1: Long Day

     Shifters were jammed on the 10-speed: damn thing wouldn't downshift, a hassle in a town with so many hills. She was always surprised by the size of the cycling population in difficult cities, and she was always one of them. There were worse places to ride. riding my ten speed the shifters are not working big hill coming up     On her toes, she ground up the incline, swearing silently and with surprising creativity. Dark parked cars brooded at the kerb beside her as she passed them, neck and neck but pulling ahead. The top of the hill, a short sharp one, came into view, and she gnawed at the distance remaining. ... (read more)

Contrapposto

    Things were different a year ago. They're different now, for that matter. I notice things more. Sometimes I think it’s just a side effect, one of the many quietly listed on labels I forget to read: hypersensitivity, under dehydration but above nausea. It’s a physical thing, colors and sounds and textures intruding on me, and after being shut up in the sensory deprivation tank–  with cable–  they called a private room, I could understand it, for a little while. Persistent thing, though; I wonder if this is a common complaint, if I should contact my physician. For all I know it’s like hospital ... (read more)

The Queen Must Die

    I was with the Philippine army at the last assault on Reykjavik.     Hard to believe it's been long enough that mention the Queen of the North and all you get is a funny look or some spare change. Maybe that's the way it has to be, though: those of us who survived don't like remembering, and those who didn't don't.     I was there, though, at the beginning, and I was there at the end, bunked down in a troop carrier with a bunch of scared kids on the Forgotten 5th of November. Miserable weather, no time to be fighting on the North Sea, but our army, scraped together from the dregs of dead armies, floating in ... (read more)

[...but what if we're the sideshow and they're the crowd?]

     There was no sound; the room was clotted with silence. Furniture neatly arranged, floors swept, shelves straightened. All tidy. And silent. No florescent bulbs singing, no fans humming, no papers whispering, central air choked off. Just to clarify, no noise was being made. Got it? Silent. Even the guy sitting on the couch with the shotgun in his lap wasn’t making a sound.       All the lights were off. Through the blinds a little secondhand streetlight seeped in, but it rapidly dissolved in the dark. No candles, no lamps, no glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, no LEDs, no warning lights or backlit ... (read more)

Introductions

This is an experiment, to see if I can write on a regular basis. The hope is that every week I'll update with a new short fiction piece. No designated length, no specific genre. No freewriting, either: the goal is a piece of well-constructed fiction every week. So I'll probably update as late as possible.
There are two categories. Pieces which stand on their own are in the 'Short Fiction' category. If I write something worth exploring or continuing, I'll post any following pieces in the 'Ongoing' category.