The short fiction of j hardy carroll
He was thin, the black coat so stiff it might have been snipped from tin. Wiry like her uncles, but with bright bird eyes. He stood staring at the clocks, always coming back to her favorite, the one with all the faces and figures. “How long you say it took to carve?” the man asked…
By the middle of our second year it was down to us and two other teams. Five continents, sixty-odd cities and countless towns, villages, hamlets and burgs. Every step another piece in the puzzle, every discovery a link in the chain. The journey changed us. Who we thought we were. It’s hard to explain. When…
I wait at Jack’s for my client, glad he’s late because I can have one or two more doubles before we get to business. The shakes were bad this morning, so it took more than usual for me to feel like myself. I see him come in, shake his hand. I suggest a drink before…
I take my coffee out onto the front porch to watch the neighborhood go about its morning. I don’t know my neighbors’ names, but I know their weekday routine. The red Volvo full of kids, the bike commuter with the metal clips on his trouser-legs, the old woman across the street feeding the swarm of…
The blackberries had overgrown Wayne’s entire yard, twining their malevolent thorns between fences and over trees, consuming the patio furniture and even reaching into the house. Weed killer did nothing, and his pallid attempts to trim it only resulted in broken clippers and a severe rash. He found a Craigslist ad for yard clearing and…
He led me blindfolded onto the quay. “I know you bought a boat, Seth.” “Humor me,” he said. We walked across the dock, the boards tilting and bouncing. “Ok. You can take it off now.” He stood on the bow of a gleaming sailboat, grinning all over his face like the boy I’d married. “Ta-da!”…
Kenny held his reading lamp to his forehead until the last possible minute. He heard her coming down the hall and switched it off. His door opened and she put her head in. “Up and at ‘em. You’ll miss your bus and I can’t take you.” “I don’t feel well,” he croaked. “My head hurts.” She…
“The bedroom is sealed,” she said. “I guess it’s a crime scene.”
“Go away.” She looked down the hallway, remembering the first time she’d seen it. She’d been pregnant with him then, so big she almost touched both walls. Funny the house seemed so much smaller now. Maybe that’s how everything always was, different than you remembered it, smaller or dimmer or not as pleasant. She sighed.…
He got out of the car and decided to leave his box of office belongings in the back seat until he told her. He hadn’t discussed it with her. This hadn’t been planned. One day, maybe, but not yet. Working for Dynacom had been a soul-sucking experience he had come to loathe more with every…