Enclosed within a small, dark space, twelve-year-old Oaklyn sat uncharacteristically still, and with her knees pressed tightly against her chest. The moon plucked waves from the body of the sea. The waves tossed the boat that rode them. The boat rocked the wooden crate that carried Oaklyn to who-knows-where. Her stomach churned. Designed to transport produce, not people, the rough wood of the crate splintered Oaklyn’s tender, bare feet. Tears streamed down her cheeks when she remembered how her day began…
Category Archives: Literary Fiction
An August Confession
In August, the clouds disappeared from the cerulean sky. The vibrant sun scorched the grass, which grew atop the cliffs that lined the riverbank. The sun’s reach dipped to the river below, evaporated the upper half of the river’s winter-accumulated depth. Tips of formerly invisible boulders peaked out from the surface of the water. Where the river calmed, the water was lucent. An aesthetic array of smooth, colorful stones decorated the sandy riverbed. Sturdy crawfish scampered atop rocks or burrowed beneath them. Glistening, rainbow-scaled trout spawned in the calmest, underwater pools. They swam the length of the river, braved the rapids, weaved in and out of the rocks, but never acknowledged their crawfish neighbors. They scattered only as the sandaled feet of two fourteen-year-old adventurers cut the water and steadied against the slippery riverbed…
Ember the Feral
Ember was a flame-tipped, white-coated Turkish Angora. Her fierce, green eyes stalked a brown rat. The rat slid out from the drainpipe of one of the oldest houses in the city. Ember watched as the rat shook itself, and as it scurried up the side of a metal wastebin, which the residents of the house left one drawstring bag too full. The lid of the wastebin sat atop the extra bag. The residents of the house hoped the presence of the lid would appease the sanitation services provider and prevent an additional bag fee from appearing on their monthly bill. Regardless, the loose lid failed to dissuade pests from raiding the wastebin. Ember eyed the brown rat hungrily, as she watched it settle its nerves, and chew a thimble-sized hole in the extra bag. Once the rat settled on a prize, it no longer twitched its head from one interrupting sound to the next. Ember curled her lips and narrowed her eyes…
Corban’s Life was a Series of Sorrows
Corban’s father walked out of his life before he was born. He was the type who wanted all the fun of courting with none of the responsibility. The news that Corban’s mother was pregnant was more than he bargained for. He swiped a framed photo of himself and his girlfriend from its place on the windowsill and threw it against the wall. The frame shattered. Corban’s father retrieved the photo, snipped the photo in half, and cut himself out of his girlfriend’s life…
Marcel’s Monotonous Day Shift
Marcel squinted at the symbols scratched onto his yellow notepad. The bargain lightbulb screwed into his desk lamp was dim, even at its brightest setting. Marcel’s monitor outshined the lamp, but his colleague’s handwriting was no more legible than a five-year-old’s. His colleague inscribed the notepad with the data needed for their most recent project, but with no more dedication than minimum wage encouraged. Marcel’s eyes drifted from his colleague’s illegible notes to the document occupying the monitor. He sighed and navigated his cursor to the hyphen in the upper right corner of the screen…
Yellow Hardhats
A withered man sat in a folding chair along the city sidewalk. He stared through the empty spaces of a chain-link fence to the construction site contained within. He wore tattered clothing, and his hair was never straight nor tidy. His ruggedness aged him. His misty eyes observed the workers’ yellow hardhats. The yellow hardhats bobbed up and down, while the workers tended to the build…
Notorious
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” five-year-old Beth shouted.
She stormed into her grandparents’ farmhouse in muddy boots. The door to the farmhouse was rickety and ancient with gaps to the outside along the frame, making an easy entrance for flies, and the chilling breeze of early Spring. The house shook as Beth slammed the door shut…
The Event at Papa Randy’s Diner
Papa Randy’s Diner was a classic. Customers sat in bright-red booths. They gorged themselves on overflowing baskets of fries and meaty, palm-sized hamburgers. The waitresses—all young women in their mid-teens to early twenties—wore cotton-candy-colored shirts. Their matching skirts rested flirtatiously, just above the knees, accompanied by their white, half-aprons. The color of their uniforms stood out against the checkered floor of the diner, where the waitresses scurried about, as they took their customers’ orders, and served them…
Endlesslore 