The short fiction of j hardy carroll
Mark’s checked off just two items on his list before Marci commences meltdown. As always, he pretends to sympathize while secretly resenting Meg. She takes after you, his sullen mantra. Meg is busy running through her own list. They’d slept the night before with the lights on. They’d FedExed Marci’s special food box directly to the hotel.…
When Dwayne retired from Motorola we sold the house and spent a year driving the Caravan across the USA looking for the place we loved best. When we saw the ranch in Sasabe on the Sonoran border, we knew we’d found it. That was twenty years ago. It was a year-round thing. They’d come through…
She should have known at the casting call, should have taken her son and walked out. Instead, she’d signed the contract. The lure of money was too powerful, and she’d been desperate. A prank show, they said, like Candid Camera. Her son would be among other children at the museum, all in uniform. On cue they would begin…
Spring broke late and none too soon for Old Chuck. Winter, always hard, almost killed him. He’d lie sighing by the fire, trying to warm those old bones that had carried him over field and furrow, always by my side. When morning slanted through the shutters he came and laid his grizzled muzzle in my lap…
The little boy is inconsolable, his face twisted and red and sweaty, hot tears staining his shirt. He’s perhaps three and has just learned the awful truth. When the other children get taken to see the Disney movie at the Rialto, he will be left behind. The earth has crumbled away beneath his feet. Oh,…
“Why do you keep him on, Mother? The man’s the merest sot.” “Now now, Katharine. Monsieur Jaques has never been drunk in my presence.” “He’s never been sober! Look at him out there. See? He’s looking for the shears he just put in his pocket.” “He has been with the house since I was a…
I heard Jazad come in around 4:30, a full hour before usual. I got out of bed and found him sitting in our tiny kitchen, head in his hands. In the stark glare of the hanging lamp his hair was almost pure white. “I can’t do it, Fatima.” His voice was almost a whisper. “Three of us…
The old man wasn’t dead twenty-four hours when they started staking the land. The son had spent some years getting ready for the day, cutting deals with developers, drawing up maps of the various parcels, filling out the paperwork. Development. That’s their word for when they down whatever was here and build some godawful boxes…
Mary tightened the last screw on the wall joist and set down the screwdriver. She was done. She stepped outside the tiny cabin and sat on a rock. She rolled herself a cigarette and smoked and gazed over the valley at Baboquivari, whom the Yaqui called the Navel of the Universe. The valley was all…
Dominick walked back from the road, hands in pockets. “You see him?” asked Tony, already knowing the answer. “He’ll be here. Don’t you worry, little brother. When has he ever not showed up after practice?” Tony stared at his sneakers, wanting to ask when has he ever been on time? but instead saying “I’m hungry.” “Ma will…