The short fiction of j hardy carroll
She started skipping her meetings, staying home with her face glued to Fox News. Normally she don’t watch the news except Hannity. Mostly it’s reality TV, game shows, and the occasional 90s comedy. I started paying attention, using my laptop to double-check the sources. As the days ticked by and things started closing down, I…
They hang together, these al Kafir, cling to one another as flies do when they discover a carcass, setting about tasks with tremendous attention and then scattering at the slightest disturbance. Their skin bakes an unwholesome red in the sun, and despite their mastery of machines and firearms they are helpless as children, especially when…
Salman bangs on the roof of the truck. “Here she comes.” Chaim watches through the windshield as the woman crosses the street, an imitation SKS slung across her shoulders, her hiking boots shimmering with newness. He considers pretending he only speaks Hebrew but decides against it. Doubtless she’s been hazed enough. Besides, she’s pretty. “Chaim?”…
It was years before I realized my father was a criminal. I am sometimes tempted to argue this point, but everybody already has an opinion. Once the tabloids got hold of a story, it didn’t matter if what they said was true or not. When a mob smells blood, that’s all the bastards can think…
Every fifteen February we come down to Tanna for John Frum’s Day. Chief Isaac, he give us the GIs we all wear, each one with a flag. My woman Wanda at the time, she embroider the flags on here, as you see. These rifle we make ourself from the bamboo, except for Chief Isaac. Chief…
Clive and me always planned on retiring to Spain or Majorca someday. Someplace warm, anyway. Maybe planned is too strong a word. More like wished, since the pay of a London cabbie don’t go as far as it once did. All this changed when he come back to the flat after work with an expression on…
The Host stood at the entrance and surveyed his guests with a mixture of amusement and satisfaction. Aside from their gender, the men seated around the long cherrywood table had certain things in common. Each was one of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in the world, and each was an American. They might well…
Corporal Cobbs rode into the camp, his mare lathered by the hard going. Sergeant Collinsworth stood to unlatch the gate. He nodded as Cobbs led in the long column of prisoners, the other men of the platoon riding alongside the ragged group like drovers, calling out to keep them moving. Cobbs dismounted and limped over.…
The night of Solstice, when the sky comes down to the ground and turns the world to snow, the old man gathers his grandchildren around the coal stove as the wind whistles and moans outside. “The branches around us are hung with ghosts,” he croaks, the shadow of his hands sliding over the stone walls…
We had what they called a hook stop like you don’t see these days. That’s where a freight slows down just enough so the brakeman can toss out a mail sack, then lean way out to hook the outgoing sack off a pole. Sometimes it’d be weeks before we had enough mail to justify an…