Category: fiction stories

Wish of a Billion Wishers

The girl with the sticky fingers doesn’t know she holds a rare artifact beneath her thumb. Please don’t think she’s stupid for that. Her mother doesn’t know either. Neither would you, were it your hand holding me (or your jeans pocket, or change purse, or the little compartment […]

The Birthday Stealer

It’s time again for my annual birthday story. Writers sometimes talk of stories that write themselves. The older I get, the more elusive I find such stories to be. This one, however, did write itself. Channeling this tale brought me comfort; I hope it does the same for […]

A Father-Son Creation

The following is a collaborative effort between myself and my ten-year-old son. The initial concept was his. He was two pages in when he said he’d written himself into a corner. I was impressed with what he’d come up with and didn’t want to see the story wasted, […]

Two Birthdays, Two Dreams

A hammock is the best place to relax. This is what my wife told me when I opened her birthday present to me––a woven, technicolored hammock––complete with poles, since our tiny yard lacks the requisite pair of trees. At first, I laughed at the gift, but now that […]

His Own Lane Six World

  The air is drenched with odors of chlorine and perspiration, seasoned with a tang of Sharpie marker. One such marker shuffles across the back of a cherub-faced girl two bleacher rows below me. The girl’s mother watches the scoreboard clock with one eye while minding her own […]

The Kitchen Clock Died

On the wall of my kitchen there is a clock. I bought it at IKEA sixteen years ago, back when everyone thought IKEA was kind of cool. The clock has been a faithful keeper of time these sixteen years, though that’s a simple job when you think about […]