Short Fiction

“I was fishing with Reb Milch over a hole in the ice the weekend they announced it. Time was dragging for me anyway, but without the whole dire-implications-for-the-planet aspect. Isobel had moved out the previous March for reasons I kept staring into the jagged black fish hole trying to comprehend. We were on friendly terms by phone and email. I sent her a birthday present in November at her parents’ house, a shower curtain with smiling caterpillars and butterflies (hint hint, I can change)…”
(The Boiler Journal)

THEY WERE THE NEW CATS

“They were the new cats. They were Cats of Great Authority. Driving cars around the country, supervising lane closures and intersection full-stops, chastening speeding scofflaws. Why cats? Because they were expendable. Because they were already some kind of cops. Cats behind billboards. The reason they hadn’t liked car trips before was, meow meow. Who could interpret that? They didn’t steer, they “initiated in-car metrics.” They were the Bold and New and Brave Cats. An observant being was required. A being paid in tuna…”
(New World Writing)

MEASURE YOUR WEDGE

“When I was six my father developed a drinking and explaining problem. He moved out on a day I remember like loud TV and my mom met and married Alan. A home needed a man and a woman, ours had lost its man, and here came another one, with longish hair and a chinchilla moustache. I was fine with it, open and expectant. When he arrived in our house he was probably all of thirty-five…”
(Miracle Monocle)

THE THING ON TREUFEL’S ARM

“Hey Cooter, look what got ahold of me! Treufel hollered as the boat pulled in. I grabbed the lank of yellow rope where Janie threw it and tied them off. Some kind of crab it looked like, attached to his arm – squat, orangy-brown, with nubs around the pale edges of the shell like the ones that hurt your palm when you crack a leg for the meat. I asked him what is it? but he just shook it in my face, making boogety noises…”
(Literature For Life)