He rapped out a rhythm on the wrong side of an interview table and pushed back the uncomfortable plastic chair to allow room for his paunch. He shivered. The room was not freezing, but they had confiscated his coat due… Continue Reading
This blanket would be unmemorable except you recognize this as your favorite pattern and remember where, still new to knitting needles, you used to drop stitches and clumsily fix them up. Your fingertips know this sturdy, not-soft yarn without touching… Continue Reading
Face down on the street, hands locked behind my head, I lay still while Plainville’s Finest held a gun on me and Second-Best rifled through my pockets. Where had I gone wrong? My client had announced he chose me based… Continue Reading
My car was ugly. Angular, pitted gray, it could barely fly. If it weren’t for Tomiko, I’d feel ashamed picking up my boyfriend Chuanli. He climbed in the passenger seat and kissed my ear as my car’s hologram of Tomiko… Continue Reading
The abandoned tannery loomed above Gil Hadrian as he dismounted his horse. The windowless brick building still threw off the smell of stale urine and other chemicals, even after sitting unused for almost four years. Gil squared his shoulders and… Continue Reading
Four is the number of gunmen who enter the library where she’s taken her son for story time. Four is the age of her son, who will soon be five, if he lives through this day. Four is the number… Continue Reading
So I’m a couple blocks from the crib, kicking it on the corner of Louisa St. at that spot in front of the house that used to be a restaurant — that yellow two-story thing. It got the sign up… Continue Reading
Constable Gil Hadrian leaned against the side of a building, taking a break from his weaving walk through the alley somewhere in the Priesthorpe district of Ashford. All these temples looked alike after seven drinks. Or was it eight? He… Continue Reading
It was the dead of night, when everything good and clean went to bed and everything else came out to play. This wasn’t the choicest part of town but there were worse places to be. She was all legs and… Continue Reading
Russell Briggs drove long haul, only one time he ever told me about it though. Drove a big rig three years, until he come down a pass in West Virginia thank god no other cars on the road and out… Continue Reading