The short fiction of j hardy carroll
She kept right on sweeping, just like it was nothing. Me, I had a harder time. I looked out over where the barn had been, at the orange surveyors’ stakes in the ground. Without meaning to, I let out a long sigh. “People got to live somewhere, Walt,” she said. “Had to happen sometime. Besides,…
She watched through the window as he got out of the tractor and crossed the yard. He came into the kitchen, catching the screen door before it banged shut. “Lord, that new Deere is nice.” “You keep saying that. I just hope we can keep up the payments. You want coffee?” “Sure.” He took the cup…
This beauty. Her beauty, the beauty of the night, of Barcelona in May. He ran his finger along the rim of the wine glass until it began to chime. “My father will not be moved. I am sorry.” Her eyes glistened, but he saw no tears. Another time he would have said this was because…
Shame did not come when fat Tony pressed the greasy envelope into my lap beneath the pub table. Fat Tony smiled, nodded and got up to go, winked as he left. Brisbee thumped my shoulder then. “Popped your cherry, you have. Let’s have another round.” Bris motioned for the whiskey. I suppose I drank, caught…
It was Jill’s idea. She lives downstairs in our building, a city kid like me. She said she was a real Harriet the Spy. I never read it, so I’ll take her word. I like books about war. Last night there was a building party and all the kids went to Mrs. Massey’s on the fifth floor. Jill and I…
Friday Fictoneers for this week is a tough one. I stood staring at the picture of the Keck Observatory for a long time. The colonel’s blotchy face turned salt white as he watched the screen. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Are you sure this is real?” “Absolutely certain, Colonel. We wouldn’t have enacted the protocol if we weren’t. Both of…
Sunday Photo Fiction. “This isn’t just turbulence.” As she said this, the plane shuddered as though struck, jolted sharply upward. Her Bloody Mary shot from its plastic cup and drenched my shirt and lap. She closed her eyes and began to scream. The plane shook with sudden violence, then settled into a rattling vibration as…
Sunday Photo Fiction this week made me think of Miller’s Crossing, but since I already wrote something very like that I thought I’d take this in another direction. Sort of like if characters from a Faulkner story got pulled into a 1970s dirt bike slasher movie. Tarn said they had it coming, racing around like…
Only the pain was real. His daddy standing over him wasn’t, dead years gone, dead of some fool accident that made this one look minor. Yeah, minor. He laughed, more of the pain arriving along with the laugh. He wondered again why he didn’t bleed out. There was blood enough, clinging cold on what was left…
Here’s a new prompt. I love these things. Beats the seemingly endless cycle of revision, anyway. Mrs. Maurice was obviously losing her temper. “Young man, I’ll have you know that there would not even be a Prinn County Museum were it not for the generosity of Mr. Maurice.” Jared looked past her in the hope…