The short fiction of j hardy carroll
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.”…
May closed the cash drawer. It would not close. “I thought Henry fixed this,” she called to the back of the shop. “He did,” answered Joy. “Which means it’s broke in a new way. I call it Henry fixed.” She came behind the counter, bumped May out of the way with a friendly hip. “You got…
The old man scratched his privates as he made his way across beshitted carpet to his trash-strewn kitchen, the charnel reek of feral urine and rotting meat, the dozens of nameless cats crying and howling and winding about his legs. He picked among the heap of cans piled atop the grease-crusted counter seeking those yet unopened. He was amazed by the knocking at the front…
“And how is the life of my camp guard?” Trudi asked, ladling his plate full of spätzel in thick gravy. “Have they seen fit to promote you?” He grimaced, touched the unadorned shoulder tab of his tunic. “Do you see any pips, Mother? Any gold braid? No, you don’t. I am a gefreiter still and always. There is…
I never could stand the daylight. The harsh glare, the endless vista. The exposure. Being outside in the sun underscores the insect-like nature of human existence, these pathetically insignificant creatures crawling around on the skin of a stone ball hurdling through space on a pointless trajectory. Daytime is so unspeakably depressing that I can’t bear to be out in…
“Use this with caution,” the bookseller warned. He did not like this woman, but business was business. “I’ll use it however I like. I bought the damn thing. It’s mine now.” She reached for the door handle. The bookseller shrugged and turned back to his work. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Where are the words?”…
Lord Henry scowled. “Don’t tell me you believe all that rot about his being the Son of the Sea and Sky, Darius.” Darius stared across the battlements at the gathering clouds. Had he ever seen that sort of blackness before, that much weight of water? It was as though the sea floated above itself. “That…
Dear Etta & Family, Well, I got here all right and must agree with Dr. Franks that the climate in Arizona is indeed wonderful. That’s about all I can say for it. Jerome boasts but one hotel, and that seems to be perpetually full up with drummers, speculators and engineers of one sort or another.…