Unsettled
Leslie turned her mug in her hands several times, exhaled a long, slow breath, then added her mug to the table beside Peter’s. “I’d want a guarantee, I guess,” she said, shifting her focus toward repeated unsuccessful attempts to secure some wayward strands of hair behind her ear. Leslie knew it was not in her…
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Rabbit Run
Liz stared hard into the darkness. There was that familiar sound, just enough like someone walking in the attic space above that it made her start. Every time. Probably a squirrel or a bat or the pair of mourning doves who lived in the neighbor’s tree. Still, the sound frightened her. Not because Liz believed…
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Tipping Point
“It’s not a question of love, Peter, it’s a question of practicality.” Over their usual weekend coffee, Leslie finally found herself able to say out loud to Peter what she had been deliberating internally for so long: their relationship wasn’t working in its current state and some kind of revision, adjustment, or violent shakeup was…
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Something Behind
Jules sensed the tap before she heard it. Tap – a short and uncertain sound behind. I won’t look, she thought. It’s nothing. Tap tap – unmistakable this time. I won’t hurry. There was no reason to fear anything here on ground made so familiar by her feet night after night, year after year on…
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Liftoff – Redux
It’s Six Sentence Story time again and I am late to the party, as always. This week proved difficult for me. I finally decided to take something I did previously for Six Sentence Stories, and see if I could do a different version. This week’s post is the result. You can look at the previous…
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Clarice’s Apron
Clarice wiped her hands on her apron for the fortieth time that day. After many hours of doing, she was ready to sit, to read perhaps, or to reflect. “This is not my life,” she might once have said. She never imagined this version of Clarice. Never allowed herself to consider it. But life changes,…
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The Coat
Frank hurried along the street with arms crossed and back to the wind doing his best to ward off the cold. The calendar said spring, but it was still a cold hell most nights for those who made their beds on the streets. The wind picked up the corner of a coat sleeve on the…
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Leaving
Carla didn’t know what drove her decision. She only knew she needed to go. She flew through the house, stuffing items into her duffel. From the bedroom, her favorite sweatshirt. His, really. Too bad. From the dining room she grabbed her current reading pile and a half-drunk Diet Coke. She stamped down the three steps…
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The Golf Game
Mick was surrounded by guffaws and knee slaps as soon as he finished his swing and his club made contact with the ball. Swoosh…thwack. “That’s your fifth slice in a row, man! Maybe you want a cold beer to go along with it?” Swoosh…thwack. Mick grabbed his club, picked up his bag, and walked off…
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The Hot Rod
Jed wasn’t even close to cool, despite his own internal certainty to the contrary. Through all of his junior high and early high school years, Jed was alternately invisible or punchably solid, depending on the gender of those surrounding him in the locker-lined corridor.* It took him a long while to figure out that the…
