The short fiction of j hardy carroll
She stood as they always stand when I make my presentation, stiff and even haughty, as though an armour of professionalism will somehow shield them from what I am about to show, will somehow protect them from feeling anything. Of course it does not, it cannot, but I play along. I get paid either way, so…
The words rolled over her then, crushed her flat as piecrust beneath a rolling pin. She watched him shaping the words with his mouth, this doctor whom she had grudgingly agreed to see after her husband had had what he thought was the last word in their long argument. Go. Now there was another word. Cancer. And…
My Dear Claude– The experiments continue despite my so-called “setback.” It was an accident, despite what you may have heard. You’re absolutely correct in your assessment of my current state of mind. I am indeed frustrated that my colleagues see me as a fraud and even a madman, all the more since my dismissal from…
All my life I seen things different. I look at a place and I don’t see it like it looks now. I seen everything ever happened in that place all at once, like the way you can drill into a tree and count the rings. Some places, like roofs and treetops and the high sides of buildings,…
“I won’t do it. I can’t. Please.” He put his arm around her. “Really, Susan. It will be fine. This thing carries thousands of people across every day. There’s never been an accident. It’s safe as houses, as my Gran would say.” “You don’t understand. It’s…it’s…” She began to cry again. “Look, darling. We’re nearly to…
Have you ever sat in one place and watched it get dark? By that I mean have you sat alone in one place without moving or speaking, staring at a boat or a building or a stadium across the water while the shadows deepen and swell up into the sky until everything turns blue-black? A chill breeze across the…
You’d never know we grew up in that place. It took us a half hour just to find where the house had stood. Everything was changed, from the road name–we grew up on Route 217, now known as Adelaide Lane–to the placement of the creek, to the very trees themselves. It was Jay who figured…
“I wish they could come in, Mommy. Can you please open it? Just this once?” He used his most persuasive tones, dulcet and utterly innocent. For the hundredth time she told him why the window must stay locked, pointed out what had happened last time. “But I was so young then, Mommy. A child. I’m all grown up now.”…
“Ladies and gentlemen, we got us a real surprise today.” The announcer’s voice rolled across the stands, tinny speakers creating an echo at once grand and ridiculous. Ethel knew what was coming and made a face, darted a glare at Fonty III. “I swear, Aunt E,” said the boy. “I got nothing to do with this.”…