All posts tagged with short story

September 15, 2020

“On Waking Up and Strong Desires,” by Kelly Burke

It is Saturday morning. I woke up with a strong desire to get a haircut. On my laptop I look up local salons to read reviews and compare ratings. I find one that looks promising. It has 4.9 stars and a recent client named Beatrice wrote that the stylists are warm and helpful people. Everything on the website is written in a romantic cursive font like a wedding invitation. I book an appointment for noon. I type out my name, email address, and phone number. Before submitting the form, it asks me to select the length of my hair, long or short. There is no option for medium or other. It makes me wince a bit. Then I begin contemplating the most accurate way to describe the length of my hair. I think about how…

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September 6, 2020

“Yodeling in the City” A Short Story by Marc Littman

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

“No more yodeling, John, I can’t stand it!” Joan clutched her ears like she was clinging to a stout tree in a hurricane. I peered at my wife’s pained visage, a face that after 40 years I no longer tried to spare any torment, and shrugged. “Maybe I’m calling out to you, if only you could hear.” “Like I’m a fat cow in the Alps and you’re a shepherd?!” Joan cried. “We live in New York, John. People don’t yodel in the city.” Peering through our expansive windows at a Matterhorn of concrete, I started to warble but stifled the urge. Taking a different tack, I pivoted to confront Joan. “Elmer does.” “Elmer’s a peasant, he belongs in the Alps. He and Julie Andrews can sing their hearts out!” Joan volleyed back. I took a hit but stood my ground. “Yodeling is more than singing, Joan. The subtle pitches and measured breathing, it calms me, and it reminds me of our younger days. Remember when we used to…

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August 24, 2020

“The Beholder,” A Short Story by Fiama Mastrangelo

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

You blink your eyes open and stretch your arms above your head. You’re wearing an extra-large cotton t-shirt this morning—one that you got for free in your freshman year and never threw out. Your dark brown hair is splayed out on the pillowcase and is exceptionally messy. I wonder if you were feeling lazy or if you just didn’t care what I would think when you decided on this look last night. We can work on that. I watch you get up and move into the bathroom. I can hear you washing your face, brushing your teeth. You turn on the shower and the noise of running water fills the room. No steam, it’s cold water. Hot water will age you, remember? I wouldn’t like that at all. I told you that your legs felt prickly last night. I wonder if you remember that this morning, while you…

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August 19, 2020

“Writing the Song,” A Short Story by Carole Langille

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

I met Van and another man at a party and though I was attracted to the other guy, I called Van. That’s how I did things in those days. I wrote lyrics, Van told me he wrote melodies, so when I suggested we get together and go over some material, Van invited me to his small duplex on the west side of Manhattan where he had his piano. That first day, sitting on his couch, watching this tall guy with broad shoulders and curly brown hair play such wonderful melodies, I was happy. He looked like a cowboy, tall and lean, with his checked shirt and leather vest, his dark moustache, but an intellectual cowboy, his green eyes very alive. Years later, when I saw a film with Samuel L. Jackson, I thought they looked…

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August 11, 2020

“Pool Boy,” A Short Story by John Beyer

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

The concept did not come as a lightning bolt out of the sky, striking my cranium instantly. But more like a slow buildup of storm clouds on the horizon. The ones that leave a person wondering if inclement weather was in fact on the way or would fizzle into nothingness. Weather is like that sometimes, much like thoughts, ideas, or dreams. Nothing to do with reality at the moment but perhaps in the future that reality would truly become real. That was how it was with the epiphany I could make a lot more money if I turned my career into something deeper if not more sinister. I grew up poor, angry and disillusioned in Forest Park in Detroit. The small neighborhood bordering Wayne State University had high unemployment and those lucky enough to be working had some of…

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August 6, 2020

“Party Boy,” A Short Story by Lee Anderson

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

I’m alone at a charity event in Patricia Yeo’s new Midtown eatery. Shirtless, chiseled busboys and lanky, large-breasted servers run lightly about the restaurant, carrying trays the size of manhole covers. The place is gold-trimmed and supported by Roman columns but a terrible place to have a party. Not enough room. We’re ass-to-hip in here practically. I meet gazes with Celine about ten minutes after I arrive. She approaches me without hesitation. I actually don’t think she’s ever hesitated a day in her life. “Uh-oh,” she says. “Lazarus Fucking Cooper. Is that you?” “Last I checked.” “Well, there’s no telling what’s going to happen now.” “We’ll have to be careful.” “Yeah, you attract bad energy. I’m a lily caught in the rapids with you.” “I see you haven’t changed.” “Does anyone?” A hyper-paced metal song begins growling from heightened speakers,…

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July 27, 2020

“Departure,” A Short Story by Bari Lynn Hein

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

When Chelsea stepped off the school bus on her last day of kindergarten, she handed me a construction-paper card shaped like a necktie. “This is for you, Mommy,” she said. With pink and yellow tempera paint she had filled the tie with flowers, and with black she’d placed the letters M and O over the preprinted F and A in FATHER. I understood, in that moment, that the next two and a half months were to be treasured, that my days of unfettered freedom with Chelsea would be finite. Eventually, I moved the card from my refrigerator to a box on a shelf above my desk. In the years that followed, I added more treasures to the box: a seashell that Chelsea had found at the shore, a rubber Minnie Mouse and Canadian coins from our trips to Disney World and Niagara Falls, a…

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July 23, 2020

“Captain,” A Short Story by Zach Piggott

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

The pulsing woke him up from his deep sleep. He hated those blaring alarms and had opted years ago for the pulse. It did him wonders back then. Now he hated feeling it. He hoped for a morning where he wouldn’t feel it. He groaned, moving his body under the covers. His fingertips grazed the cool metal that had become familiar to him over the past weeks. He swung his feet over the side, his weary green eyes half opened. Where a partner should’ve been had been empty for six years. Too committed to the military. It was just another excuse. The routine was the same since he had gotten home from his deployment: breakfast, shower, shave, dress and wait. Sometimes he waited all day with nothing happening. Other times he received phone calls. Once or twice he was ushered…

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July 16, 2020

“Knowing,” A Short Story by Jarrett Mazza

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

SOMETIMES I WAKE UP AND forget where I am or how I arrived. We often wonder about our personal truths, our pilgrimages that help us to see who, what we are. At night, when I’m sleeping next to her, I sometimes roll quietly out of bed and stumble into the kitchen to shake off the nightmares I’ve had. I’m bleeding in each one. I can assemble so many pieces of my life and merge them meticulously together and take some time to assess how it’s all going to work before I get back to bed. But we can’t change overnight. We just need time. I suppose the lowest moment, the moments where you could say I wish I was saved became increasingly more frequent. Alone in my two-bedroom loft, before I met her, I found…

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July 6, 2020

“The Life and Death of Arthur Miller,” by Andrew Lafleche

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ARTHUR MILLER or, Damnationem Vita et Humani Conditione Fourteen days after Arthur Miller’s sixteenth birthday, both his parents were killed in an automobile accident when a drunken driver swerved into their lane as they returned home from a night at the theater. Their deaths occurred instantly, and to that effect, neither were able to be presented with an open coffin at their post-life nuptials. The last time Arthur saw his parents alive was in the moments following Sunday dinner, his mother in a dress, glowing, his father dressed handsomely, saying, “When you finally meet the woman who makes the world stand still, son, don’t ever quit doing for her what you did at the start. That way there will never be an end.” Arthur clung to these words in the weeks that followed. He clung to everything…

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