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FICTION
"Winter
crawled out of the furred countryside a waking beast and raked
the walls of their little cabin. Eve taught at school until
the start of winter vacation. Then she spent her days at home,
with Sailor. They sealed off the drafty bedroom with towels
and plastic sheeting, and settled into blankets on the couch
by the patio door, making love and reading out loud to each
other from their favorite novels. At night they slept on a
futon, feet stretched to the furnace's open flame."
"Jill
said, "Watch this," and slipped over the edge of the boat,
into the water without a splash. Then she was a dolphin circling
you, her dorsal fin moving in and out of the water. You had
the feeling that you should get in the water with her, but
as you looked at her, held the slide up to the sun, you weren't
sure she was a dolphin after all. You couldn't see under the
surface and you'd always felt sharks and dolphins looked alarmingly
alike."
by
Christiana Langenberg
"Without
fail, "weed garden" was always one of the written commands
of my father. It was frequently included in a varying list
of tasks: pick up dogshit (dog-dirt if he was feeling particularly
amiable), clean rooms, sweep pool, etc. I hated weeding
that freaking garden. Mostly we just picked up the dogshit
in the yard, because it was a pragmatic task for us: we
needed a clean surface for wrestling, and we needed an obstacle-free
wiffleball field."
The
Waiting Room
"Suddenly
I hear my name and my belly goes butterfly and as the nurse
is taking me down the hall and chatting me up a bit, I realize
that it is a man. But a man on his way to being something more,
and he is actually in that in between place, and I start to
flirt, just a bit, and he smiles all brilliant white and shows
me to my room and tells me his name is Gregory. "
"Duke
and I drank a bottle of wine and smoked a joint in the dark
of our compartment. Through the window a herd of silhouettes
grazed in a field, prompting Duke, "Do you suppose that people
got mad cow disease because cows had mad grass disease?'"
by
Whit Honea
"Before
he could react, a few loose brake drums slid off the raised
palette, dropped ten feet, and one of them landed on his head.
Fat Sal and the forklift finally slammed into the next row
of shelving,sending auto parts and dust bursting all over
like giant hunks of confetti."
Resurrection
"He
heard a rush of sound behind him, and felt something hard hit
his back. An empty wooden hanger clattered to the floor. A dresser
drawer followed, sailed past him, and as he ducked, flinging an
arm over his head. It hit the wall, spilling his underwear and
socks around him on the floor. 'Let me help you pack,' she spat
out."
The
Mouse Inheritance
"In
his letter to them, after apologizing for what he was about to do,
and after saying how he wanted them to know it was not their fault,
Carl wrote: 'I leave my record albums and Venus fly traps to Jim,
my coins including the Civil War bullets to Edith, and I leave Ziggy,
Zygote, and Zip to Gina.'"
"Q.
I have an uneasy feeling about Frank. Will he pay my thousand dollars
of babysitting money back?
A. He'll blow it all on quarter slots at Asbury Park next weekend,
then dump you for Mary Ellen."
"The
ad said very clearly: 'Wanted. One Jim Sallis. To Start Immediately.
Experience Required. Apply in Person.' This is what I'd been waiting
for."
"The chin
in its strap was jutted up to the night sky and a thin, eery,
beatific smile spread the smooth mahogany face in a catatonic
stare of half-closed, unblinking green eyes. 'Sweet Jesus,' Coach
Gibbs whispered."
by Theron
Montgomery
"We
were pulling into adjacent spaces in the parking lot at Foodmart,
and he misjudged and plowed head on into my old Pontiac. Though
we didn't bother to exchange insurance information, the next morning
I woke up with him in my bed."
"'George
is hard to talk to but he has a great sense of irony,' Dan says
into his glass. 'He's also apparently really talented as a zoologist.'"
by Ross
Taylor
"The
doctor knew another story about an old world thick and stiff with
arrogance, tradition, with the way things always were. On maps,
they drew fantastical monsters in the land beyond known boundaries.
"
by Kay
Sundstrom
What
Goes Inside a Lead Box?
"'It's
uranium,' I said. 'And I got most of it from garage sales.' Armstrong's
father didn't say anything, just carried the Geiger counter out
the front door and sat on the porch and smoked."
by Marnie
Webb
Honeymoon
""Like
this," my father said, and he put his hand on mine and adjusted
it carefully, resting the stick on my small fingers in a way that
felt right, like I was in control."
by Jonathan
Rubinstein
Goths
"With
the black circles around his eyes, the black lipstick on his mouth,
he looked a bit like Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands."
by Douglas
Thornsjo
Back
to Home
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More BMR Authors' Books:
Making Scenes
by Adrienne Eisen
Small Boat with Oars of Different Size
by Thom Ward
Viking Brides
by Richard Cumyn
Interesting Monsters
by Aldo Alvarez
The Gauguin Answer Sheet
by Dennis Finnell
Rosicrucian in the Basement
by Robert Sward
Bloodroot, the book and Bloodroot, the excerpt
by Aaron Roy Even
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