The short fiction of j hardy carroll
“The petroglyphs told the story of an unusual event.” He paused, staring out at the lecture hall through thick lenses, hands clasped behind his back. In his pinstripe cutaway and bow tie he resembled a vulture, the effect highlighted by gleam of the hall lights on his bald skull. “Anyone care to guess?” A tense…
“My land! Such a heat!” His mother fanned her face with the map. “You’re the one who wanted to see the goddamned thing.” Heat made his father irritable, as did long car trips. “You’re getting sweat on the map.” “Language,” she said, eyes darting toward the back seat. “Little pitchers, Howard.” Howard glanced at Howie in the back…
You ever listen to an echo of your own voice? It’s you, a few seconds ago. Your breath, your vocal chords, your thought behind it. Not like a recording, since it’s gone almost as soon as you hear it. Your imprint, a shadow self. It started when I heard my echo in the pedestrian tunnel.…
He sat in the big armchair, staring at the body. So strange to think it would never move again, at least on its own. For some reason this last was hilarious. His face twisted into a smirk the way it had when he was in school and someone had passed him an amusing note about…
“Enzo!” The boy would not look up from his game. Carbone felt his gorge rising. The guide went on, oblivious. “Craftsmen from Naples and Sicily were brought in special to do the plaster carving. They would fight, so the foreman had to have them work on different floors.” “Enzo’s great grandfather was one of those…
“At first, it looked like an ordinary marble, but it was far from it.” He looked around the table, that familiar drunken glee in his eyes. I was sick of it. “Jesus, Ned. Just tell them already.” I had heard this particular gross-out story at least ten times. He always told it after five or…
Zeus was not having a good day and he made sure everyone knew it. Maybe it was the storm, or maybe it was that they had run out of dog food again and had given him cat food. It always upset his stomach and gave him the shits. Certain conditions Zeus regarded as more or…
The woman at the desk greeted me with the muted enthusiasm of a person working long hours. “She’ll be so happy to see you. She doesn’t get many visitors.” “I’ve been busy,” I said. “You know how it is.” She stood. “Let me show you to her room.” “No need. I think I can find…
“What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” “What a crock.” I kicked the side of the treehouse. “It doesn’t even make sense.” Teddy tossed the book into the corner. “It’s full of that stuff. Maxims and shit. My aunt gave it to me when I was little.” “What are maxims?” He…
She hadn’t anticipated the cold. She knew this wasn’t supposed to be comfortable, not that there were many stories about how it was supposed to be, but comfort was really the last thing you could expect, at least while you were actually doing it. Even pills would make you nauseated. Her original plan was to…