Category Archives: Fiction

It was Fall again, and there was blood on the pumpkin. Not that there was blood on the pumpkin every Fall, but there was this time. It seemed natural. It seemed like a tractor accident in October was a normal … Continue reading →

Amos Cartwright descended from sharecroppers who barely survived the Flood of 1851. Fortunately for his forebears, Sampson and Blanche Cartwright, the owners of the land they worked did not survive.  Through a convoluted web of bureaucratic wizardry, helped along no … Continue reading →

They met at the public Christmas party at Whole Foods.  Both of them were unimpressed with the party, but intrigued by one another’s selection of beer.  He bought a six-pack of locally-brewed IPA.  She had her 32 ounce growler filled … Continue reading →

Exercising…just exercising..my fictional muscles.   Blood dripping onto a marble floor has a unique sound.  The noise is lighter and has a gentler sensation than water.  Drops of water “thud” flatly when they hit the floor; blood has more of a … Continue reading →

He drifts slowly from consciousness, slipping from crisp coherence into a soft, shallow haze of semi-awareness. The clot of tangled detritus upon which he rests floats down the street, snagging a street sign, then a tree branch, then a lonely … Continue reading →

The deeply held moral and political convictions of both left-leaning and right-leaning politicians evaporated completely within five years after the first formal announcement. The announcement came at the conclusion of what became known as the “survival summit.”  A joint statement, signed … Continue reading →

This short story is fiction, but it’s based (very, very loosely) on real people who might…or might not…have bizarre fantasy lives. For many, many reasons, the names have been changed to protect those people. And myself. Mardina has spent much … Continue reading →

The following paragraphs arose from my on-again off-again effort to write about a fictional character, James Kneeblood.  I conceived of him a few years ago and have written quite a lot about him, but my writing has never been satisfactory. … Continue reading →

Almost no one dared think it, for it was too terrible to consider.  But Galen Cameron thought it.  And he spent the better part of ten years delving into it. Not that finding the answer mattered one whit, because if … Continue reading →

When I was a child, things were different.  Life was hard, but kids learned the value of hard work, ingenuity, force, and fear. My parents both worked in other states so they couldn’t take me to school.  We were poor … Continue reading →

    When a child has imaginary friends, the child is considered normal…maybe a bit above normal.  When an adult has them, he is considered insane.  That’s not right. I mean, consider the novelist or playwright who creates entire casts … Continue reading →