The short fiction of j hardy carroll
Our last fight was incongruously serene. Of course, we were dining in an upscale restaurant, so neither of us so much as raised our voices. The immensity of our marital catastrophe kept us polite despite our mutual aches of emptiness and pain, our laundry lists of wrongs and resentments. Why bother? was the mantra. “You…
Yulia came down the stairs, silent as a cat. Imani looked up from the sewing table and saw the tears streaking her young face. “Oh child,” she said softly. “Don’t blame yourself. He’s always like this during the Navidád.” “He screamed at me,” the girl said, voice choking. “Called me the aborted spawn of a…
McRoy rapped the bedstead with his cosh. “Rouse up, Jens. New lot’s arrived.” Jens, never a sprightly waker, emerged from his sleep like a man wading ashore. He rubbed his eyes. “What o’clock?” McRoy tugged out his watch and flipped it open. “Half six. Royal Navy starts early.” They walked to the quay where a…
The Bull was taking his time, speaking a few words and then staring across the fire in long silence. The smoke was terrible, but the old man did not seem to mind it. His granite countenance gave nothing away. Some of soldiers said it was Sitting Bull himself who killed Custer, but Maclester chalked that…
Lannie told me a story that happened some weeks after the tragedy. That’s what Lannie called it. The tragedy, as though it was some kind of sad movie instead of a mob of white people killing Negroes in the streets, burning down our homes and businesses. Anyway, Lannie and his momma were shopping for groceries…
He is at his hotel room door before he realizes he’s forgotten the coffee. Too late now, he thinks, and unlocks the door. She smiles up at him from the bed, then notices his pallor. “My god. What happened?” He feels his knees begin to buckle, collapses into a chair, the sweat running down the…
Nicote sat with his back against the dank stone, arms and legs weighed down by the immense chains bolted to his ankles and wrists. Ribeiro sat across fom him, similarly bound, his head drooping. Nicote cleared his throat grinned, feeling the gap where the guard’s spear-butt had knocked out his front tooth. “Another tight spot,…
It was just after eleven when the bell began tolling. The loudspeakers played a recording from the San Francisco Temple days, the whole church singing Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land Tell ole Pharoah to let my people go while Father’s voice, urgent yet calm, said the words I’d come to dread these…
Crouching, she tried to look out the grime-encrusted window. “You think he saw us?” “Doubtful. Besides, people come here all the time.” “So you keep saying.” “Let’s walk around.” Their feet crunched the rubble that littered the floor, motes of dust hanging in the still air as they moved through the vast room. Long tables…
In essence, it was a royal journey through the Carniolan estates so His Majesty might receive the hereditary homage in person. Simple enough, but Emperor Leopold placed great value in pomp. Nothing less than three brigades of horse guards in full turn-out, fifteen gilt carriages to carry what amounted to his entire court, dozens of…