The short fiction of j hardy carroll
She ran her hands over her leather-clad thighs, flexed her fingers. Her trusty Bell helmet had been knocked askew in the tumble but seemed sound enough. She pulled it around so she could see her situation. Her motorbike was on its side, about six feet from the cliff edge. She breathed a sigh of relief,…
They used to tell me I was building a dream And so I followed the mob When there was earth to plow or guns to bear I was always there right on the job They used to tell me I was building a dream With peace and glory ahead Why should I be standing in…
The skylight blazed hot on her face. She opened her eyes. Pain. Oh God, she thought. Not again. She raised up on her elbows and looked around. She was lying on a butcher block table, pots and implements suspended above her as though dropping randomly from some airborne kitchen. Tamping down a swelling nausea, she sat up…
She lived at the end of the row of squat stone houses. There were seven of them all told, hulking and sullen, tough as old wood. Dorothy was somewhere in the middle, but the largest of any of them, with a soft woman’s body that belied her tremendous physical strength. She was fond of teasing…
Luz stood in the foyer with her eyes closed, breathing the old smells, corn and beans and singed chiles, beer and smoke and sweat. She smiled, remembering how Oscar had kept it a secret while he lined up the loans, how he’d led her in blindfolded. It had been an empty room then, not much…
Pricket sat in his cabin and stared again at his chart. Clearly there was no Northwest Passage and never had been. They’d been embayed in ice these last six months, starving and riddled with scurvy and flux. With the slow coming of spring they had a chance to take leave of this damnable wasteland, sail…
Some kind of Buick, left in a stream. It used to be somebody’s dream. -Adrian Belew Chandury walked from the office to the his aged Honda and propped the broken hatch with his shoulder while he set the box beside the others. He let the hatch drop and stretched his sore back. The motel looked…
The woman smiled up from the table, her mouth a wonder of dentistry. “Welcome,” she said. “Remember, cash only.” The house was modest, yet overfull. Every item bore a small yellow tag with its price. I stood in the living room in front of an empty china cabinet, its contents arrayed on the table behind…
The drone of the airplane seeped into my dream. I bolted awake and smacked my head on the branches of my makeshift lean-to. The pain in my leg roared through me, a blinding streak of red that fogged my vision for a second. But the plane was real. I gritted my teeth and started to…
“You’ve had an accident.” The voice was soft, with an accent Lloyds couln’t place. He tried to open his eyes and saw nothing. “We bandaged your head,” the voice said. “I’m afraid it leaves your eyes covered. It’s temporary.” Lloyds opened his mouth to speak, but this too proved impossible. “Oh, so sorry,” said the…