This is a revised version of this story.
The alternating red and blue lights bounced off the houses along Centre Street. The ambulance and squad car pulled up and blocked the driveway. The officer and paramedics came up the drive. The medics wore slickers and carried their equipment in big plastic boxes.
“Which is [...]
This is a revised version of this story.
The red and white lights whirled, reflected off the snow, houses, and the night sky. Mens’ breath hung in plumes in the air. Blood, and soot, and black ash streaks stained the snow. Bill saw the red and white lights break around the bend in [...]
The young couple were pleased with their apartment in Lakeview Oregon. The rooms were small, but there was a deck connected to the bedroom. Nathan and Sarah Tate owned few things, and lived out of their trunks, and they used the trunks as furniture. Their rooms received the sun evenly. They [...]
Rachel sketched Caitlin. Caitlin leaned against an ancient tree. The lake was in the background. Rachel was close, only a few yards from Caitlin. Rachel drew broad light lines upon the paper. Rachel worked deftly and quickly. Caitlin wore her hair up, and a necklace made of azure stones. [...]
‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘At least give me a whiskey.”A spoon full of medicine makes the sugar go down.’ She laughed then, and I sat down at the kitchen table.I looked out the window. I heard the ice cubes rattle around a tumbler. The moonlight stumbled over the window sill and across the [...]
She looked sideways down the bar away from me. I looked down the bar over her head. There were handsome young men and the women they bought drinks for lined up two deep down the bar, and the young men who wished to purchase drinks lined up. Hana swung back to me.
‘Hello [...]
‘You wreck everything,’ she said to Woolcott. ‘You wreck everything.’ He did not pretend it was any good, there was nothing to gain. Nothing at all.
‘Read any good books lately?’
‘No, I haven’t read anything.’
Woolcott watched her move about the bar. He sat at the bar and watched her in the mirror [...]
My father knew maps, and he knew the roads of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. He died on Saturday June 18, father’s day was Sunday June 19, and I turned an old man on Monday June 20. The funeral was on June 24, and they had an honor guard there that fired a 21 [...]
I sat at the bar. It was a long wood bar, and I always enjoyed drinking there. I lit a smoke, and enjoyed the Captain Morgan’s. It was warm in the bar. I took off my jacket and hung it on a hook below the bar.
Woolcott said: ‘Let’s have another.’
‘Sure,’ I [...]
Kaede leaned up against the brass rail that ran around the bar. Hana sat between Kaede and I. Hana drank a whiskey, she drank, and shivered a little, then drank again. Kaede said something to me. She leaned down the bar.
‘Sure,’ I said.
Kaede wore a tight white long-sleeved shirt. She [...]
Music
