(Short) Fictions

^{Winner
Very Short Fiction Award}

The small birds are freezing to death this winter. I find one warbler on my morning walk—I now take weekend walks—littering the concrete, her beak left open, her rimed legs as brittle as if made with toymaker’s tools. I nudge the bird with the toe of my boot like edging a mini-golf ball. I wonder if the quarter-ounce of blood that once flitted through her veins has changed to ice, if that’s possible, for blood to freeze, the body’s very life force changing states, or is it just a turn of phrase: frozen to death.

“Things Frozen Then”
Glimmer Train (Issue 105)

Down the first twist of stairs and Josie hears she is not alone, like hearing a tree in the wind beyond her bedroom window. The old man: splay-legged before his door like a failing easel, he moves slow as death.

“The Old Man Who Lives Two Floors Below”
World Literature Today (Spring 2020) 

Where later that night in the ICU, outside Nonny’s door, at the close of visiting hours, there is another doctor, who stands with legs spread apart like balancing on the subway. This doctor says to the family, “No news is good news right now, we’ll see what the numbers say tomorrow,” although for Rose these days are inverting, as if beginning with night and ending in morning.

“Hopefully We’ll Know More in the Morning”
The Florida Review (Vol. 44, No. 1)

The night before, Gillian and I had attempted fish tacos, an experiment in the kitchen. We watched the news as we cooked, and that’s when we’d heard rates at the Monte Carlo were cheap after that fire a while back, and Seinfeld was on after that, although by then it was clear Gillian and I were not ideal kitchen partners because the pico de gallo was soupy and we had scorched most of the mahimahi, likely destroying my grill pan in the process. 

“Burning the Fish”
Catamaran Literary Reader (Vol 4, Ish 1)

Just like that it seemed a mistake, standing there on Karen’s front step with a pecan pie from Donatello’s, because through the fogged living room windows I could see there were more people inside this two-bedroom house than I anticipated. It had that twinge of a mistake. That choked panicked feeling when you think things have become clearest at the worst possible moment, a moment too late, feeling underdressed in tennis shoes. My car parked around the corner. I had already pressed Karen’s buzzer. This was Thanksgiving.

“That Dance People Do”
Chicago Quarterly Review (Volume 13)