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Showing posts from October, 2014

The Tramp Clown's Secret

The sky was clear, the moon nearly full. Fireflies rose from the gardens and drifted over manicured lawns where old timers, arm in arm with nurses or slumped forward in wheelchairs, returned from late afternoon strolls. Two male residents sat on the porch of the nursing home in flannel shirts and overalls, sipping chamomile tea in their rockers. They had spent the last few hours catching up, as they had not seen each other in sixty years. “I really do miss her,” Sam muttered, eyes moist and red beneath his flat cap. Virgil stopped rocking and leaned sideways over the small wicker table between them. “What’s that you say?” Sam raised his mucus-lined voice. “ Ruthie . I miss Ruthie.” “Oh.” Sam stared into his mug as if hypnotized by a vision there, the lines of his face deep enough to hold thin shadows. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought the better of it. Finally he put his tea down and said, “Virgil, there’s somethin’ I’ve been meanin’ to ask you for sixty years now.”

The Dark Island

Thane arrived at the Wisconsin Indian Reservation around noon, having just bounced along ten miles of dirt road plagued with pot holes and tree limbs. Lake Michigan, sunlit blue and specked with gulls, sat low in the east behind an autumnal stretch of maple and birch. His pickup came to a skid at the general store and launched a dust cloud at a waiting tribal officer. The officer, whose black hair hung past his shoulders, lifted an eyebrow and watched the cloud pass through his legs. Thane dropped from the truck and tore off his sunglasses. “Sheriff Stalking Bear?” “Ike,” the man said, gripping Thane’s hand. “You must be Mr. Swink, from the Field Museum. Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you, too. Call me Thane.” The pickup coughed and pissed some fluid, then fell silent. Thane withheld eye contact just long enough to suppress his embarrassment. “Might wanna get that checked out.” The sheriff’s tone had a laugh pushed up against it. Thane slid the sunglasses into the v of hi

The Blackout Killer

Rain pelts the window above the kitchen sink. Lightning reveals empty takeout containers near a stack of dirty dishes. The apartment went dark during a stretch of deep thunder, activating a continuous knock at the front door, a knock that sounds as if someone is unnaturally set upon confronting the inhabitant. That inhabitant—nervous, gray-haired Ager Bennett—sits by candlelight at his dining room table, browsing old newspaper clippings. Another Child Slain During Power Outage, Murderer Dubbed ‘Blackout Killer,’ and Blackout Killer Escapes Asylum are just a few of the headlines. Ager, life-long bachelor and retired locksmith, refolds the clippings and sets them atop a book about phobias, anxieties, and sleep disorders; a book that assures him the knocks aren’t real, that such things are triggered by his paranoia. Regardless, his nerves unravel; they are defenseless against blackouts. So he swallows another anti-anxiety pill—his third of the evening—and begins to jot down his thought

The Hunchback's Captive

I was facedown in swamp muck beneath a moss green moon, gasping for air and choking on aquatic slime, when a female hunchback grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me ashore. Red will-o’-the-wisps twirled through the fog about us, while dark pines creaked ominously overhead. What had led me to sleepwalk to such a place? Had I been dreaming of what might lay beyond the edge of the city, far from its apathetic citizenry, tangible greed, all that privilege and expectation? Away from the howls and squeals of cars, trains, and other oiled machines? Had my soul looked to escape the leech-suck of it all? And who was this savior of mine, this decrepit hag wearing nothing but a potato sack for a garment? I inquired, but she would not speak. Instead she hummed, though not in any musical sense. Rather, that soft buzzing deep within her dewlapped neck sounded more like an electric power line. How strange, I thought, this woman’s presence near such a terrible, noxious swamp, for she was frail,