Category Archives: Short Fiction

“Gesundheit!”

Short fiction for guests of the Wordfeeder
Saturday, October 1, 2011

The street was busy that evening, as usual. Three narrow, unmarked lanes, one of them for alternate street parking, the one on the other side blocked by a delivery truck here and a service truck there. The pavement was still damp from the late afternoon rain, just a bit of steam rising where the sun breaking through the clouds was doing its job. There was still and hour or so of daylight. People, mostly young in this neighborhood, were coming and going in between and around each other, avoiding garbage bags that wouldn’t be collected until late that night, and the occasional piece of throwaway furniture left at the curb. Racks of fruit, flowers and other stock protruded from the front of stores that were thriving on the flow of locals coming home from work. It was noisy with the sound of traffic and of people talking, too many to hear what any of them were saying.

Stepping quickly across the street, between two badly parked cars and onto the sidewalk, she walked up to the door to the right of the Gyros place that was in the bottom of the converted tenement where she lived, five tall flights up. Without looking left or right, she put her key in the lock, the key with no chain to help find it, turned it, pulled back the heavy metal door and stepped into the dimly lit hallway, looking ahead to a brighter light at the bottom of the staircase.
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Imperfect Together

Short Fiction for Guests of the Wordfeeder
Monday, September 5, 2011

“You know,” Greg mumbled into his pillow, wondering if he’d been drooling, “I can feel you staring at me.”

“That’s not possible,” Georgia responded from where she was sitting up against her pillows, her knees up, one hand on the TV’s remote control waiting to see if she should change channels.

“Are you staring at me?”

“Well, yes. Sort of.”

“How did I know?”

“Because you can feel the intensity of the anguish emanating like laser beams…”

“Like red laser beams.”

“Right. Like red laser beams out of my electric blue eyes.”

“That’s it exactly.” Sitting up, Greg grabbed and stacked up his pillows against the headboard, fluffing them just so, scrunched his tush up and interlocked his fingers while staring mindlessly at Jimmy Fallon’s monologue. “Okay, I’m up. What’s bothering you?”
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The Desk

Short Fiction for Guests of the Wordfeeder
Monday, August 22, 2011

As is the case with everything I write,
except for a few details, this is a true story.

Prelude –
(To a short short story? Why not?)

As you may already know, there are literary historians who contest the notion that William Shakespeare (4/26/1564 – 4/26/1616) was, in fact, the prolific author he is reputed to be. (Yes, he died on the same day of the same month on which he was born.) It is their theory that, acting as a front, Shakespeare took credit for the works of one or more of his contemporaries, namely Francis Bacon (1/22/1561 – 4/9/1626) and/or Christopher Marlowe (2/26/1564 until he was stabbed to death on 5/30/1593 at the age of only 29). Most scholars believe this debate is unwarranted and that William Shakespeare was, in fact, the genius creator of the works to which he signed his name.

In any case, relationships among these three men – Shakespeare, Bacon and Marlowe – varied from cordial, even warm, particularly between Shakespeare and Marlowe, to angry, resentful and distrusting. Some have even suggested that Bacon – who was known to have a nasty disposition, generally lacking any sense of humor and occasionally ruthless – may have arranged for Marlowe’s demise, envious of his closeness to Shakespeare and angered by certain blasphemous remarks, quite shocking for their time, made by Marlowe about Bacon which Sir Francis took personally. Who knows?

What is known for sure is that Shakespeare’s remarkable productivity stalled abruptly in late 1599, with no output – no play or poem – through most of 1600. The best he could manage was some reworking of Hamlet which he had first written in 1589. Why? Could it be that Shakespeare was distracted and, instead of writing, chose instead to spend the year rolling around with Gwyneth Paltrow? (Who wouldn’t?) Of course not. That was the movie. In fact, no one really knows, but there is a school of thought that believes Shakespeare, who was a superstitious person, was affected by a gift he received about that time from none other than Francis Bacon himself. Alleged by Sir Francis to have been presented to encourage a reconciliation between the two, there are those who believe the gift had a much more sinister purpose.

—————

It was early on the perfect Saturday morning, Jake’s favorite day. He’d been up for a while, wrapping up one of the columns that would one day make possible the nice house in the country which was their dream. For now, their one bedroom city apartment would have to do. His nimble fingers were flying over his laptop’s keyboard, until they stopped abruptly, for just a moment, before hitting the final period. “Done.”
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Schmutz* Patrol

Short Fiction for Guests of the Wordfeeder
Sunday, August 14, 2011

*According to the Urban Dictionary: Used by Jewish mothers to identify that you’ve got some kind of crap on your face. Random, icky stuff that ends up on you or something else. “Dirt” in German.

Tuesday, 1:05 PM.

An attractive 30 something brunette in one of those fits perfectly business suits only high priced women attorneys wear, makes her way through the noisy lunch hour crowd of professionals at this particular downtown grill to where the other half of her meeting is waiting for her in one of the booths.

“Hey,” the attorney, still standing, says to the women she has come there to meet who is busy reading something on her phone, her crab cake and fries platter half eaten. “I got held up on a conference call.”

“No problem. Have a seat. You want something to eat?”

“No,” the suit responded, reaching over, without asking permission, to take one of her fries. “I won’t be here that long. Are you sure it’s okay to talk here?”
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The Badger

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, August 7, 2011

Joyce, the station’s third floor receptionist, was working at her desk. Having put off getting new glasses until her next annual increase, coming up in just 11 and half months, she found herself having to work unusually close to the copy she was editing for one of their segment producers. Poor near vision, together with her extraordinary powers of concentration that often found her ignoring incoming calls, were about to be overcome by the unusual shuffling sound of something walking toward her desk. It was as if someone wearing unusually large fuzzy slippers was coming her way, unable, for some reason, to lift his or her feet the way normal people do.

“Hi.” The voice was odd, in a cartoonish way, possibly electronically altered.

No response.

“Excuse me,” the voice tried again to get her attention. This time it did.
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Pretense

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Saturday, August 30, 2011

“Did I miss him?! Is he here yet??” Clara rushed through the side door to “The Highway Diner,” the one with the rusted metal “Employees Only” sign next to the buzzer that hadn’t worked in years. Not waiting for the screen to slam behind her or for the gym bag she was carrying to make it inside, she blurted out her question in a loud whisper.

“No,” her cousin Janis, a waitress with no particular future plans, shook her head. “It’s still early.”

Pulling franticly on the doorknob to the “Ladies” restroom, it took her a moment to get the point.

“Hey!” a woman’s voice came from behind the door. “I’ll be out in a couple of minutes!”

“Sorry,” Clara apologized, spinning back, away from the door, toward her cousin. “The locker room.”
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The Plug-In

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
(It’s time for something a little different.)
Friday, July 22, 2011

“Good afternoon, Nathan.” At precisely 3 PM, Dr. Cheryl Schreiber, Doctor of Psychology, somewhere in her thirties, opened the door to the loft where she lived and had her office. Even at a distance, he could feel the faint swoosh of air touching his face. “Com’on in.” Nathan had been waiting in the lobby Dr. Schreiber shared with the other professionals in the converted factory.

Rising quickly, Nathan took his eyes off the cable news that was playing on the flat screen on the wall across from where he had been sitting, turning to smile at the attractive woman he was there to see. Gray jeans, a white pleated shirt, her shoulder length hair shifting inexplicably when and however it wanted, she moved to greet him with a presence you could feel coming. “Hi.” He extended his hand, which she shook firmly. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” They were alone in the lobby, and spoke openly. “I just felt I needed to see someone and a friend said you.. said you were easy to talk to.”
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“Hello?”

Short fiction for guests of the WordFeeder.
Sunday, July 17, 2011

Even from their bathroom, over the sound of the shower, “Benny” could hear her phone ringing, the cell phone she’d left on their sofa in the small… no, tiny city apartment she shared with her friend, Denise. (“Benny” was short for “Benjamin,” her mother’s maiden and her middle name.)

“GET THAT!! If it’s Marc,” she shouted, “tell him I’m in the shower, ..naked, ..alone, ..thinking about touching myself, but saving myself…

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get it,” Denise yelled back. “…How long,” she thought to herself, “can she stay in the shower? No wonder people in the building complain about not having any hot water. Maybe she’s…,” her eyebrows went up, her head angled slightly, her eyes looking around while she thought about it.
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The Dishes Fairy

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, July 10, 2011

Ordinarily, on any other day, Muriel would have found the banging of their front door knocker annoying, some delivery or salesman she really didn’t need interrupting her work. There was always so much to do. Their children had grown up in this place and moved out after college but, even without their kids around, they were somehow busier than ever. Her husband, a reasonably successful writer of pulp fantasy fiction, had always worked at home except for trips to his publisher, for the occasional book tour and sci-fi/fantasy convention..

“Yeah, he went to those,” Muriel took a breath, shaking her head slightly, side to side. “Said it sold books, but I think he just liked being there. Even took me to one when it was just the two of us. ..I remember this kid, dressed as God-knows-what, came up to Danny, put his hand on Danny’s chest and told him, tears in his eyes, ‘You’re the real deal, man.’”

..and to Los Angeles, the one time they made a TV movie based on one of his short stories.

Today, in the late morning, doing chores in a house that would never again make the familiar sounds she had taken for granted, today, any interruption was welcome. This one, in particular. Without bothering to peek through the side windows, Muriel turned the oblong brass knob and threw open the door. Standing there, she wiped her hands on her apron and smiled, her eyes watering at the site of Julie, her oldest and best friend, looking as disheveled as ever.
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Craig’s Lisp

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, June 26, 2011

From their respective offices where they worked throughout the sprawling single story complex, the four interns – the only four the firm had hired that year from the best of the best universities in architecture and urban design – converged and now walked side by side down wide diagonal path that led to Craig’s corner offices.

Built on the farm his grandfather had left him, its pastoral rural location was in stark contrast to struggling urban centers in which the young firm had made its fortunes. With degrees in finance, urban economics and design, Craig – who insisted that everybody call everybody by their first names – had found a way to renovate the worst neighborhoods in our major cities, making them thriving communities, mostly for their original residents and businesses, and do it all at the expense of the private sector without a single dime of government funding. If that just sounded like a lot, it was. He was only in his early 30s, but this was already his time.

The four of them worked together, more or less, and were the closest to being friends any four 20 somethings as self-absorbed as they were could be.

“Why do you suppose he wants to see us?” Alice was uncharacteristically nervous. “Are we in trouble?”
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