Impression management. Measured words. Think before you write. Continue reading
Stories
Hotshot Holly (And How She Got There)
Twin-bladed helicopters dumped the bright red slurry (water and fertilizer) on the manically dancing flames, then swooped through the smoky haze to the reservoir, to refill for another drop. Even with no wind, the wildfire gobbled the grassy plain, Continue reading
Morning Blessings
Wake up. Open your eyes. Or not.
Stretch from the tip of your chilly nose, through the arms and shoulders, down your back, deep into the gluteus max, into the length of your calves and out through the end of each toe. Continue reading
Nora’s Mistake
Nora crouched at the edge of Fischer’s Gorge and pulled a braid of human hair from inside her jacket. Each strand in this braid had been woven together from the remainders of uncounted childhood games, battles fought and forgiven, and secrets shared among four friends, over nearly two decades. She pressed it to her face and breathed in their memories, then began the unraveling. Continue reading
Solit’s Web
She’d climbed down the drainage tunnel, crawling due east, then straight down. That ladder better not end before the tunnel did. Beau had promised, Continue reading
Love in the ’80’s
(Response to the second Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo: Humor)
“Thanks for the ride!”
“There’s a payphone in town. We’ll take you there,” the farmer nodded from under his straw hat as his wife peeked around the edge of her bonnet.
***
So how’d I land here, sharing the back of an Amish wagon with two piglets, a smelly sheep, and a drooling farm dog? Continue reading
The Real Nanjo Castille
Blat of mule’s bray, and Nanjo rattled into the village square. People grumbled, crowding the buckboard wagon. They’d been waiting since dawn. The stench of unwashed clothes hung heavy in the morning heat. Continue reading
Valley of the Trolls 