Short Fiction
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“Whatcha doing?” Tony asked“Just killing my darlings, sweetie peach,” Mom answered.Still typing on her keyboard, she turned and smiled over at him. Tony was used to her magic and weirdness.“Can I have a juice box?”“Have a glass of milk and grab me a beer.” Mom returned to the soft glow of her screen.Tony made a
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There have always been signs. Ever since there have been have and have nots, beggars, derelicts, people currently without housing, those in need have communicated with others of their ilk to eat, to get help, to protect themselves. A small pile of stones hidden meant shelter. A coarse cross scratched on a doorstep meant a
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“What can I get you today?” Bobby asked the man in the far left four top.“Just coffee with sugar.” His menu sat untouched in its chrome holder.“Right away, mister.” Bobby’s fake cheerfulness was more fake than cheerful. It was near eleven o’clock. The last hour of a four to midnight was always the weirdest in
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Dry leaves tickled the side of Paulina’s right cheek. Her mother calls her Lina but she likes it when Daddy called her Yo Pauly in a funny voice. Wishing she was warm on the sofa eating cereal, Paulina is chilly.Wet grass smell with a touch of iron rose around her. Confused Paulina tried to inhale.
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“Don’t be a little chickenshit, Ashton,” Jordie said.“Yeah man grow a pair,” Drew parroted. Drew waggled his eyebrows at Jordie in a way that he hoped she would find adorably sexy. Jordie wrinkled her pert nose.Aston threw a harder than necessary play punch to Drew’s shoulder. “Quit dick eating bro,” Aston said and left the
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Click, clack. Leaving Carmella’s in her wake, Dru clicked home to her fifth floor walk up on her weary heels. The night sky had begun to bleed dawn. This late in the evening turning to early morning meant the city was empty as a sarcophagus. She wished she had eaten. Dru walked more quickly. Ahmar
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“Enter.” Janx’ voice was terse as usual. Instantly I was a little boy asking for a second cookie instead of a grown man, a crown prince, a bridegroom. Even though our union was in name only, a year long symbolic marrying of our clans, I still felt I deserved more. More what I had no
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I said, “I love you.” I said it with the undulation of my first and seventh tentacles and my steady gaze but the tiny biped understood. I could tell because it loves me back and hearts joined speak a common language. I’ve never been in love not since my mother. Mating is a thing apart
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“And that’s not even the worst thing she even did.”Magdalena exhaled. She blinked hard not to cry. Randy looked up, down, and everywhere except at Magdalena’s face. She had just told him about her mother, who disappeared for two weeks then returned home with a fake kidnapping story. She talked about the little girl fear
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The sun poured into the bow window, splashing across the kitchen table, dripping golden light towards the sink. Catherine was rinsing a jadite mixing bowl. Humming to herself, she turned the bowl delighting in its rightness. Nic sat at the kitchen table. A wide ruled notebook lay in front of her and a thick pencil
circular staircase 