short-story
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The desert doesn’t care about your plans. This was the first lesson Jack Write learned when he traded his graduate thesis on Kierkegaard’s concept of despair for a tool belt and a 1998 Ford F-150 with questionable AC. The second lesson: heat warps everything—glass, metal, morals. Palm Springs at 3:17 PM was a study in…
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The dashboard clock read 6:38 when I pulled into the gravel lot. Eight minutes late – early by my standards, when considering Luna’s habitual tardiness, but for Luna, this might as well have been standing her up entirely. She leaned against her Honda, arms crossed, one foot tapping. Stein, her 110-pound mastiff mix, sat obediently…
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The bartender polishes a glass that’ll never be clean – appropriate. I’m on my third bourbon, neat, the kind that burns like regret. Sully Erna’s growling through the speakers about devils and crossroads, which feels about right. Another night unraveling at the seams. You’d think by now I’d have learned – the world doesn’t give…
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Marylyn murmured “good night” through the phone, and Hank fired back a curt “Night,” thumb smashing the end call button before her rejection could hit—just a silent void now, no echo of the old days when a handset’s clunk marked the end. Gone was the heft of plastic in hand, the small speaker and microphone…
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When I was five, I was a lost boy,a Peter Pan with a heart full of Neverland,and I didn’t want to grow up.I’ve always had a hard time letting go—of things, of moments, of the small universethat spun around me at five years old. To give up being five felt like betrayal.My world was a…
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“The years apart folded into a single breath,and the greater homecoming—to her, to Him—lit the universe with a quiet, unending hello.” It’s been twenty-five years, give or take a shimmer,since I last saw your shadow spill across the floor,a silhouette I knew for thirty-three tender turns of the earth.I’m older now—older than you ever carved…
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The day stretched long, yet held its grace,I toiled in fields, dirt beneath my nails a trace.My back groaned low, lifting burdens high,A job or two I sought beneath the sky. A younger me, with frustration rife,Spoke of bills, of girls, of a carless life.Gas too dear, the reason he was late,I heard his woe,…
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“The snow fell soft as memory, blanketing the world outside, while the fire within whispered her name—Jacklyn, the spark that never fades.” The last-minute bustle had swept through town like a fevered wind. Shelves at the local grocery stood barren, picked clean by hands clutching canned goods and bread. Firewood was hauled indoors in armloads,…
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Letting go wasn’t a choice, but a season—winter, relentless in its hush.I fell with no ground, no direction,only the ache of motion without meaning. The warmth fled, roots curled inward,and endings did not ask permission. Yet even winter must break,ice must bow to thaw.I did not say goodbye—I let it turn to earth,to feed what…
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“The life that I have known is gone, but in its place, a strange new music plays.”— Adapted from W.H. Auden His head bobbed gently, resting against the cold windowpane of the train as it carved smooth, silver lines across the waking landscape, steel wheels humming beneath steel tracks. Dawn crept in slowly beyond the…
BB Grey--musings 