The short fiction of j hardy carroll
They hang together, these al Kafir, cling to one another as flies do when they discover a carcass, setting about tasks with tremendous attention and then scattering at the slightest disturbance. Their skin bakes an unwholesome red in the sun, and despite their mastery of machines and firearms they are helpless as children, especially when…
Abdulla studies himself in the mirror, turns this way and that, smooths his coat. The mirror was his mother’s pride, said to come from a famous Tel Aviv department store, a seven-foot slab of silvered glass in a gilded frame. Abdulla remembers that it took four men to bring it up the stairs to her…
Salman bangs on the roof of the truck. “Here she comes.” Chaim watches through the windshield as the woman crosses the street, an imitation SKS slung across her shoulders, her hiking boots shimmering with newness. He considers pretending he only speaks Hebrew but decides against it. Doubtless she’s been hazed enough. Besides, she’s pretty. “Chaim?”…
Fifty-seven years of stagecraft. Miller, Albee, Mamet, Moliere. And Shakespeare. Troilus, Henry IV, Oberon, Macbeth. Stunned at his pale face hanging in the mirror as he wiped the Ben Nye from his eyes with cold cream. This he could still do without thought. Ironic, or maybe apt. He closed his eyes again, tried to summon…
It was years before I realized my father was a criminal. I am sometimes tempted to argue this point, but everybody already has an opinion. Once the tabloids got hold of a story, it didn’t matter if what they said was true or not. When a mob smells blood, that’s all the bastards can think…
Ellie’s voice in the darkness. “Mommy.” “What is it, honey? You have another bad dream.” In answer she crawls into the warm bed, face wet and hot. I hold her slim back as she sobs. I stroke her hair. “You want to tell me about it?” “It’s Mister Nervous,” she says. “He comes in because…
Every fifteen February we come down to Tanna for John Frum’s Day. Chief Isaac, he give us the GIs we all wear, each one with a flag. My woman Wanda at the time, she embroider the flags on here, as you see. These rifle we make ourself from the bamboo, except for Chief Isaac. Chief…
Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet. -Job 18:11 When it gets dark I begin to worry in earnest. A quick trip to the shopping center usually takes all of two hours, but it’s now closer to six. For the tenth time I check to see my…
Clive and me always planned on retiring to Spain or Majorca someday. Someplace warm, anyway. Maybe planned is too strong a word. More like wished, since the pay of a London cabbie don’t go as far as it once did. All this changed when he come back to the flat after work with an expression on…
I was in town and arranged to meet him for tea. He looked older. We all did. He rose to shake my hand. “Haven’t seen you since Toyko,” he said with a trace of a smile. I’d been one of those tasked with the delivery system. His job was the chemistry, Others in the group…