The short fiction of j hardy carroll
When I told him I was ready to take the vow, Brother Xavier’s kind face wore a look of concern. “I’ve been here for a month now, Brother,” I said. It felt strange to talk, “During this time I have spoken twice. When I arrived, and now.” He smiled. “I believe I understand it now. The vow…
I tried to make sense of his note, but it was just gibberish. He had taken them books with him, so I knew he wasn’t going off to kill himself. When I checked with the bank, they said he’d cleaned out his college fund on Friday. That bothered me, but not for the reasons you’d think. There…
“Not like her to oversleep,” said Sue. “Especially on a Sunday.” “Well, I suppose we’d better go in,” said Nancy. “It looks like they all might be sleeping.” Sue had a strange feeling as she knocked on the kitchen door. Mr. Clutter and Kenyon were always up early on a Sunday, though Mrs. Clutter usually stayed in her…
The Punjab sun lay across Lieutenant Maclean’s back like a heavy wool blanket. He ignored it as he climbed the steep stairs of the citadel. Beside him, Sergeant Ross puffed like a dray horse. They passed through the high arches and strode through the shade of the now-deserted fort. “Bloody hell, sir,” said Ross. “It’s a good thing we beat Maharaja Singh on the plains.…
He bought a basket of new plums, ate them while he watched the girl exchange pleasantries with the miller. He was struck by her beauty, her freshness. “Who was that maid?” he asked the miller after she had gone. “That’s no maid, sir. She’s the daughter of Florent the silk merchant.” “Is this Florent a member of the guild?” “A…
The horsemen ride into the square with blood-curdling yells. They look like something from a history book, Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan’s time. Oriental faces, fur leggings and hats. Many of the Germans go to pieces, drop their guns and run. The riders cut them down. They are wonderful horsemen, slashing and stabbing as they…
The night city is not the day city, though they share the same streets, the same alleys. Light becomes a commodity. The men of the night city, free from the day of park-sleep and bench-sleep, daylight indignities of filth, of squalor, the sordid shame of open begging in the face of bottomless scorn. They come into their own…
Every light in the house was on when I arrived. The three men sitting in the bright kitchen at the long table that had once been in my grandfather’s service station, clear pine darkened by age, pocked and burned by my grandfather’s cigarettes, the cracks in the grain blacked from my grandfathers oil-covered hands. They faced one…
Countless disappointments had battered me down until I’d pretty much given up. Surrendered. I stood in my empty apartment and cried out to a God I didn’t believe in I give up! And like magic, the despair and loneliness were lifted from me. I felt as though I’d set down a heavy suitcase. No longer was…
By slouching over the broken steering wheel like an octogenarian, I could just see through a spot of clear glass in the shattered windshield. My breath came in gasps. My left leg felt numb, far away. I could feel blood running down my face and neck. My ruined car was making hideous sounds– the fender scraping the ground, the clatter…