The short fiction of j hardy carroll
Hector wipes his hands on his shirt before turning his newspaper page so as not to stain it with sweat. He is used to the heat. Not so his nephew Martín, softened by the air conditioning in his mother’s apartment. “Doesn’t this place have any customers, Uncle?” he complains. “Some,” says Hector, not looking up. “Not…
Windi leaned against the bar, sipped her ginger ale with a straw so as not to smear her fantastic lipstick. Her eyes coasted over the empty black vinyl booths, the vacant luminous disco floor blinking its random pattern, the polished brass pole. Under the music she could hear the the throb of jackhammers shattering the…
I walked past the War Cemetery every day on my way to work, but it was years before I noticed him. A tiny old man dressed in khaki, kneeling on hands and knees. Always khaki, always kneeling, every day. Some days I didn’t see him at first, but he was there, kneeling among the gravestones, perhaps hidden…
Our moms had been best friends since kindergarten. They got married on the same day, a double wedding. Both got pregnant on their wedding night. Ralph’s birthday was August fifth, mine August eleventh. Next door neighbors, closer than any brothers. As kids, we loved the war movies, especially the John Wayne ones. The Flying Tigers. They Were Expendable, Sands…
“You entirely create your reality. It is only by complicit agreement that the world as you understand it exists, your shared human beliefs giving it shape and substance. It is not that the tree falling in the forest makes no noise if nobody is there to hear it; it is that without a hearer, the tree itself cannot be.”…
Algar worked his shoulder. The wound was painful, but the bleeding had slowed. With some difficulty he shucked off his woolen jerkin. He took a deep breath, uttered a prayer and waded into the haelwaters. The cold was stunning, but he braced himself and went to the center of the pool. The boil of the falls fell fierce…
McCormick tilted the paper to catch the cold November light, pencil clenched in his teeth. He glanced around at the ruined cathedral, its single undamaged arch, the opening choked with rubble. He folded the dispatch into an envelope and tied it shut, then picked his way through the debris to where Corporal Collins was waiting astride his motor-bike. “Here you go,” said McCormick,…
I met Mom and her new husband at the Top of the Mark. We looked out on the city and drank fifteen dollar cocktails while she went over her plan. She had brought maps, guidebooks, old photographs. The husband said nothing, but I could tell from his Rolex that he was the one paying for it. “Why?”…
The bar at the Craic is busy most Friday evenings, but when Waitangi Day falls on the weekend it borders on insane, twenty-four hours of partying. We haul cases of the extra glassware out from the cellar and triple the liquor order. I’d been working straight up since seven AM and was desperate to have a piss.…
The waiting room was much more grand than it had been five years ago. The mayor seemed to take decorating tips from our show. We’d been waiting forty-five minutes before the secretary reappeared. “I am so sorry,” she said, her smile thin below eyes that did not smile at all. “His excellency has had an…