The short fiction of j hardy carroll
Stuart ordered a cup of coffee. He poured cream into it and stirred it in. He swiveled his stool part way around to keep an eye on the building across the street. The man sitting next to him was eating a donut, breaking it in half and dunking one of the halves into the coffee,…
Abbot Gírad d’Cist took an avid interest in the drawings the master mason etched in smooth plaster to help guide construction, especially those that depicted how Angers Cathedral would look to an observer. He clapped his hands in delight. “You must understand, Excellency,” said the master mason, “we are years away from what you see here. Decades.”…
“You entirely create your reality. It is only by complicit agreement that the world as you understand it exists, your shared human beliefs giving it shape and substance. It is not that the tree falling in the forest makes no noise if nobody is there to hear it; it is that without a hearer, the tree itself cannot be.”…
A small-town doctor who buys a daily half gallon of whiskey causes gossip. During the course of a week, I’d hit six different liquor stores in three different towns, none of which I lived in. I’d dispose of the empties the same way, hauling the bottles to the landfill or a dumpster behind a bar. I never drank in…
The sun felt good on her face. She closed her jet-lagged eyes and breathed in the spring smells. Flowers, baking bread. “Må jeg bringe dig noget at drikke?” She looked up to see the waiter, his crisp white shirt and black vest. The sun gave his blue eyes an otherworldly glow. She reached for her Danish phrasebook.…
I was early shift on Sunday, so I caught the call. My partner was AWOL, so I stopped by his apartment on the way to the scene, dragged his booze-reeking carcass out of bed. A lady patrolman was putting crime scene tape across the door when we got there. “Hold on there, Darling,” said Bill.…
McCormick tilted the paper to catch the cold November light, pencil clenched in his teeth. He glanced around at the ruined cathedral, its single undamaged arch, the opening choked with rubble. He folded the dispatch into an envelope and tied it shut, then picked his way through the debris to where Corporal Collins was waiting astride his motor-bike. “Here you go,” said McCormick,…
It is only when she doesn’t seek him that she knows he is truly there. She feels his breath on her collar, yet will not turn to see. She believes her eyes have the power to make him disappear, perhaps forever, and this she will not do. His presence does not comfort, does not agitate. She does…
Though he spoke nothing but Spanish, he insisted he was Italian. In all the years he worked for us I never saw him wear anything but twill workman’s coveralls and boots, the soiled black Basque beret as much a part of his head as his nose. Señor Palomino was never addressed by his first name and seldom spoke…
I met Mom and her new husband at the Top of the Mark. We looked out on the city and drank fifteen dollar cocktails while she went over her plan. She had brought maps, guidebooks, old photographs. The husband said nothing, but I could tell from his Rolex that he was the one paying for it. “Why?”…