The short fiction of j hardy carroll
“What’s it like?” “You don’t remember? It’s only been a year.” “No. I really can’t remember. Except that it used to hurt all the time.” “I don’t hurt.” “You don’t always feel the burning of the air in your lungs? Your heart banging away inside your chest and never getting rest? All the acid churning in…
You want so badly for it to be different this time. It will be different, you keep saying. Different different different. Like a mantra. For one thing, it will be morning. For another, you’re older now. The longest journey begins with a single step. You saw that once, on a poster at school. Or maybe it was drops of…
The pink water had long gone cold when she found him. Why is it pink? was her first question, answered when she saw the gash on his submerged wrist. He must have taken pills too, she thought, since the cut looked superficial. Insanely, she wondered if he’d used her bubble bath while running the tub.…
I was stop-lossed twice, so I did four tours. The first time it wasn’t so bad coming home, since I knew it was temporary. Midway through my second tour we started calling the enemy insurgents instead of soldiers. They changed the game, making bombs out of TNT and old 105 shells. IEDs could look like a…
“Ruth! Will you shut that damn dog up? I’m trying to take a nap.” Ruth wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron. Paul was always crabby on Sundays before dinner, especially if Pastor Bean’s sermon hit home as well as today’s. Paul really did drink too much sometimes. “Sorry, Paul.” She looked out the window to see…
It looked odd, using the big gutting knife to clean his nails. I guess he did it to put a scare into the man, scare him without threatening outright. Speers is smart like that, doing just enough that you get your imagination working against you. He told me that a man is always his own worst enemy,…
Pa insisted I come along with him to see Pake off. I didn’t want him to go at all. Jefferson doesn’t have a proper bus terminal like a real town, so we stood out in the parking lot like shoppers. “Just always do what your sergeants tell you to do, but remember you’re a Barnes and don’t take shit…
Aunt Anne had spent the prize money many times over before she even entered the contest. Mother was worried about her. “She’s always been like this,” Mother said over breakfast. “The cart before the horse.” “Hmm hmm,” said father. He had his face in the paper, clearly not listening. Dottie knitted her brows. “What’s that…
He’s not coming out. Not tonight, anyway. I must have known. I think I did, anyway. It’s such a cliché. Late nights. Straight to voicemail. I haven’t told anyone. Not my sister, not my mom. What would they say? Tell me that they saw it right away, that they saw what kind of man I…
The black bag over his head was bad enough, his breath moist and uncomfortably hot. Funny how he’d never noticed before just how hot the air in your lungs really was. You saw it on a winter morning, of course, the jets of steam coming from the children as they waited for the school bus. But you…