6:32 a.m. There is an agitation in the Morgans’ swimming pool. The water becomes abruptly more aware, as if nudged from drowsing. The September sun is edging over the horizon. A flurry of crows crosses the brightening sky. Their squabbling rings out in the morning quiet of this Palm Springs suburb. The ripples in the pool abate quickly. There isn’t a breath of wind yet, and the pump remains off at this hour. The water lies inert, held down by gravity, walled in by layers of concrete. … [Read more...] about Bodies of Water
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To Deaden the Nerve
https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/to-deaden-the-nerve-by-christopher-notarnicola Marines sit on the ground with their feet in their hands, their bare knees against the wet morning grass to stretch their groins, to loosen their limbs, to gather themselves near the flight line behind company headquarters. They await the arrival of their instructor, the start of their next round of martial arts training. They wait to advance, to add to their takedowns and submissions, to harden their … [Read more...] about To Deaden the Nerve
The Get-Go
Sadie’s mother was tall and narrow, with a long braid down her back, black when Sadie was very little, then silvery, then silver, an instrument to measure time, an atomic clock. Her father had been tall, too, both he and the mother the tallest members of short families. In photographs and at reunions, they loomed. Everyone was happy when they had a short child: they’d decided to fit in after all. Sadie was small and plump and blonde, and when she was nine, her father died, and it was just the … [Read more...] about The Get-Go
Even on Good Nights
1. On my morning walk along the service road, I see through the chain-linked fence a man on his knees. He’s smashing his fist, the flesh of which is a bloody mush, into the pebbly shoulder of the highway. The sound of it is like the slapping of a paper bag full of wet sticks into concrete. He’s not an old man, but not young either. There’s a bouquet of flowers on the ground beside him. He’s weeping and cursing. I call through the fence, “Hey man, please don’t do that. Please . . .” He stops, … [Read more...] about Even on Good Nights
The Vacant Field
I stood at the edge of a vacant field. Police who were not dressed as police were looking in the field for things that were dangerous. These were items left by a woman who was not dressed as a terrorist and who also was not one. She did wear a uniform. She was no longer there in the field. An officer picked up a wrench and threw it in my direction. I protested, “You threw that wrench right at me.” He didn’t respond. I repeated. “He threw that wrench right at me!” Nobody heard me. The … [Read more...] about The Vacant Field
Ember
American Short Fiction · Ember by Pascha Sotolongo Chuchi marvels at the sparks brightening this darkest night, and I guess they are kind of pretty. You look up, let your eyes water against the cold, and can’t tell the embers from the stars. We don’t have a tree this year, so maybe smoldering flakes of the Brownsburg Public Library are as close to Christmas lights as we’re gonna get. Chuchi tilts his head all the way back, mouth open, and the orangey glow illuminates his features. Little swirls … [Read more...] about Ember