The short fiction of j hardy carroll
The lawyer sitting across the table from Floyd had a greasy look. “It appears your brother Errol Barnes, esquire, has left you a hotel, ” he said. “Son, I haven’t spoke to Errol in fifty years. Why in hell would he do that?” He opened his briefcase and took out a stained letter. “This may…
“I am sorry, Father. I hate to disturb Matins, but you have been summoned.” Padre Sebastién had been expecting this for months. He suppressed a grunt as he arose from the prayer bench. He was tired. Perhaps now he could have some rest on the passage back. He smiled at his audacity. He was a…
“My mother begged that I always remember my caste,” said the boy. “Though we are only Sudra.” “Devansh, there are no castes here. In the cane vineyard, all are made equal by the work they can do, the acres they can harvest. Queen Victoria must have her sugar.” “How came you here, Sidra?” “I came…
Vargas knew she would not stop crying, so he hit her a few more times and closed the bedroom door, leaving her to her tears. He went out to get wood for the stove. The snow howled outside. The stove warmed the cabin to a swelter. Vargas stripped to his undersuit as he drank himself…
A story is based on an experience of Susan Travers, the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral who became a driver of French Foreign legion general Marie-Pierre Koenig, the only woman the Legion ever admitted into its ranks.
“I don’t understand. Where will you go?” “Somewhere. Anywhere. Sasha, this place is killing me. It is killing our daughter. You hear her cough in the night? Do you think this is a normal thing? Do you think people in Kursk or Vladivostok have such children that sound as though they should be in a…
When Mr. Jurgens gave him an F on his project, Pete got really upset. “Edison couldn’t understand that Tesla saw his inventions in visions,” Pete yelled. “They came to him in dreams and he built them!” “Yes but Tesla’s inventions were functional. This isn’t.” This took place in front of the whole class, which is how Pete…
She opens a drawer and finds dozens of photos taken with her long-ago Instamatic. Her children, trapped forever by the flesh-bleaching flash, their expressions frozen and stunned, reddened eyes demonic and glowing like coals. By the time electronic pictures came along she was no longer on speaking terms with any of them. Years ago her…
May 11, 1926 09:00 The Norge’s keel resembles a warehouse as we ascend, piled with sleds and skis, tents and snowshoes. We lack only the dogs to make ourselves an Eskimo village. 0930 Byrd’s cursed Fokker gallingly flew alongside us for a quarter-hour this morning, as though to say to Amundsen “no matter what you do…
“Ten seventeen,” says the lady. She’s real old, maybe too old to be working. “The sign said the hats were ten bucks.” “That’s right, and with tax it’s ten seventeen.” “Ten is all I have,” I say, looking at the pile of torn singles and dirty change on the counter. “Plus, I’m already wearing the…