The short fiction of j hardy carroll
“Are you done crying?” he says. “For now,” she says. In the back, Suzy sleeps fitful in her car seat. He watches the tiny face in the rearview, the red stain of the taffy covering her cheeks like a rash. “I don’t think giving her sugar is such a good idea,” he says. “I’m sure…
Abu bin Dasha sat cross-legged in the center of the gorgeous carpet. The fabric walls of his tent were affixed in such a way as to catch the slightest waft of breeze, should one appear. The desert was capricious with breezes and everything else. He opened a carved sandalwood box and took out a pinch…
“May I get you another?” I picked up my glass, shook the melting ice. “No, I’ll wait. She’ll be here any minute.” “Very good, sir.” He strode back across the patio, watching his tables. The place was filling up. I glanced at my watch. She was taking forever. I watched the moon for a while,…
Hector wipes his hands on his shirt before turning his newspaper page so as not to stain it with sweat. He is used to the heat. Not so his nephew Martín, softened by the air conditioning in his mother’s apartment. “Doesn’t this place have any customers, Uncle?” he complains. “Some,” says Hector, not looking up. “Not…
All living things. Animals and plants, but especially plants. Her delight. The house smells of moss and acorns, of blossom and verdant decay. Her apron still hangs on the hook by the door, the soil-stained pocket sagging with the weight of spade and wrotter and trowel. She favored hand-made tools made by her husband, the…
Windi leaned against the bar, sipped her ginger ale with a straw so as not to smear her fantastic lipstick. Her eyes coasted over the empty black vinyl booths, the vacant luminous disco floor blinking its random pattern, the polished brass pole. Under the music she could hear the the throb of jackhammers shattering the…
Graz the Ragman trundled his barrow through a landscape he did not recognize, though he had lived all his life in Dresden. Where the Frauenkirche had stood was now a tumble of scorched stones, smoke and dust hanging in the air like a shroud. The baker where his mother had sent him for the Sunday loaf of rye…
I walked past the War Cemetery every day on my way to work, but it was years before I noticed him. A tiny old man dressed in khaki, kneeling on hands and knees. Always khaki, always kneeling, every day. Some days I didn’t see him at first, but he was there, kneeling among the gravestones, perhaps hidden…
A thin winter’s moon cast its watery light across the pool beneath the Tower gate. A pair of boatmen rowed the prisoner with muffled oars. Beneath the stinking burlap hood, the chained man was also gagged, lest he attempt to bribe the rowers. He was known to be a silken-tongued devil, and Cromwell was taking no chances. The oarsmen backed water as they waited…
Our moms had been best friends since kindergarten. They got married on the same day, a double wedding. Both got pregnant on their wedding night. Ralph’s birthday was August fifth, mine August eleventh. Next door neighbors, closer than any brothers. As kids, we loved the war movies, especially the John Wayne ones. The Flying Tigers. They Were Expendable, Sands…