She Knew: An Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from my short story "She Knew":

When she got the call, she knew. When he didn’t show when he said he would, she knew. He was dead. There was no doubt.

The call came early the next morning while her roommates were still asleep. Kelly was up, taking advantage of the rare quiet in the house, sitting in the kitchen with her coffee. The kitchen was at the south end of the narrow rental house, the sun coming in through parted curtains over the sink. She was struggling through the assigned Henry James when the chirp of her phone made her jump. 

On the phone, Kirk’s friend was full of sympathy for her, but Kelly didn’t cry. How could she be sad for him? Kirk had crashed his motorcycle on the Boulder Turnpike on his way to see her. A truck changed lanes without seeing him. Arrangements were being made for a funeral. 

She would have to go, she knew. Standing in the morning kitchen, twenty-year-old linoleum beneath her toes, she knew she would go to the funeral. She would have to look sad. Wear black. Be sullen. She was his girlfriend. Even though she was going to break up with him. It was really why she’d invited him up to Boulder, despite midterms next week. It was time to end it. Her bad-boy phase was coming to an end. At least that would explain the difference between Kirk and Gavin.

Shoot the Freak: An Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from my short story "Shoot the Freak":

Alistair balanced himself on the wide boards of the boardwalk and looked first to his right, then to his left. He was amazed by the number of people that were milling about. Coney Island on a sunny October day with temps in the seventies. He’d been told the whole amusement apparatus would be shuttered for the season, so he couldn’t see what would draw so many. It was then that Alistair looked at the ocean.

The low, fall sun reflected off the water and he had to squint to see the mirage. It looked less like water than a misty apparition, surging and heaving off into the sky without horizon. Only once, as a child, had he ever seen the ocean, the Pacific on a trip to San Francisco to visit relatives and to be reluctantly towed through every conceivable tourist attraction, including the elevator ride in Coit Tower and the haunting bars and steel doors of Alcatraz. His only experience with the sea was aboard the rain-soaked deck of a pitching and jumping vessel, clutching a chipped metal rail while keeping his eyes on his feet to avoid the nausea coming on.

The sight of the Atlantic here made him feel, instead, calm. Especially calm after the whirlwind of the past few months. Especially after the events of the day before and the long night that followed.

Skylane: An Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from my short story "Skylane":

When the plane’s engine stopped sputtering and finally gave out, Lou felt it begin to fall. Even a week later, she could still feel her stomach rise, see the water rushing up towards them, knowing that they were going to crash.

Lou and her husband, Jerry, had survived. Their Cessna Skylane had splashed down not far from shore. They had been able to make it to the sandy beach, shaken and bruised, before help arrived. One piece of broken wing floating on the lightly stirring ocean.

In their condo, four stories above the beach, she looked out past Jerry sitting in his chair at the same calm gulf. Jerry had a bandage high on his bald head. He was reading through an old pair of glasses.

“When are we going to fly again?” It wasn’t the first time since the crash that she’d asked the question.

He looked at her standing in the kitchen, her graying hair full of curlers, waved a fat hand at her and went back to his reading.

“Get back on the horse, you know?”

“You know where the plane is, Mom?” He didn’t look up at her.

“Yes.”

“Not exactly in flying condition, is she? Sitting under the water now.”

Save the Tiger: An Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from my short story "Save the Tiger":

It was around eleven in the morning when he realized his shoes didn’t match. Standing in the breakroom, having poured his cup full of rancid, tepid, but necessary coffee, Matt paused, leaned against the counter to take a sip. And there were his shoes. The right, hard-soled, the toes brought together in a sort of point, the leather shined. The left, still black, but the leather and soles soft, the stitching rough and casual. He really should have noticed. Noticed when he put them on in the dark, when he walked to the car, and through the hours seated at his desk.

He blamed the girls. One of them, either Amy at five, or the older, Naomi at seven, had been playing in the closet and moved his shoes around. Yet there they were, the two shoes paired up, where he would have left the normal pair the previous night.

Still, he smiled. Not at the thought of one mischievously mismatching the shoes. Not at his own foolishness, absentmindedness that would have let him go through the whole morning in shoes that didn’t match. He smiled at the thought of his girls. All else could go wrong in the world, but it would all be okay in the company of Naomi and Amy.