Fiction

When his father was out cold he tied him up, roping his arms to his sides.

At first my dad was optimistic that he could be a one-armed farmer.

The engineers seemed ripe for mockery, some more than others.

In three years he had made her forget that blindness meant not seeing.

With a couple, there must be one who outlives the other: the survivor.

He sees the slight swelling of her breasts in the open collar of her blouse.

Maybe she was a stereotype now: a single woman with a cat.

“You are a strange one,” she says. “Do you want to see my new tattoo?”

Apparently this was something he had to tell her with his clothes on.

It’s hard to say why Marlee wears the bridesmaid’s dress to work today.

The night was clear, a fat kingfish moon in the sky with stars.

A queen bobcat lives in the hollow base of a dead cypress.

Three fingers had been cut from her right hand, two from her left.

“Bo? I need you to be a big boy now,” she said. “Are you ready?"

The bank had stated that emphatically. They had to sell and sell now. It was as if Hank had aged twice as fast, and he couldn’t stand that truth.

Your bookself will appear to find you trivial, its nose deep in some tome.

Nobody knows where I am, Ned thought. No one in the whole world.

She says, It’s so difficult to find a good guy. My lips form a half smile.

When we’re all together like this it feels like hope is a possibility.

On her wedding day Ellen accidently locked herself inside the pantry.

Strangely, this may have been the first time I really saw anyone’s face.

He touched her bruise more softly than an elevator button.

I realize now that hers was the face that taught me what driving was.

Here’s a first, he said, some nutbag wants to dig the grave himself.

I opened my pocketknife, grabbed his hair in a fistful, and cut.

“And if you ever tell anybody what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it.”

It’s so good to see you, she kept saying. You too, he said. She led him around the house to the places she’d stored his things. They had broken up five months earlier, while still long distance.

Someone was saying his name, and that’s how he knew he was dead.

Jimmy’s jacket, mittens, and shirt were in a pile next to his frozen body.