Category Archives: New Fiction

‘Even If Only One Day’ by Daniel X. Morrison

New Fiction

No, I don’t think I would live it all again if given the chance. Laying here in this shithole I call my home, pain constant despite the medication the doctor says is the maximum he can prescribe without it killing me, I don’t see the point of living again. To even consider such a thing is laughable, or would be if I still had the ability to laugh.

My life has been royally fucked from the very beginning: Born prematurely and my mother nearly died bringing me into this miserable excuse of a world. My father was mostly absent, and when he did show his face it was only to beat my mother or beg for money to feed his own addictions. This is no one’s fault, and I’m not blaming him for the intense suffering I feel for the years I’ve spent attempting to navigate this life of mine. Not his fault that I was destined to be diagnosed with stomach cancer at the relatively young age of 45. Not his fault that I realized I was gay when I was only ten years old. Not his fault–not anyone’s–that I made the decisions I made, some of which led me to serve five years in prison for assaulting a man who said he loved me and then stole every dime I had saved for three years. This is all on me, and I can handle the burden with enough meds.

Last week the doctor told me I might have six months left to scrabble around and fight the disease eating me alive from the inside. My stomach is in constant pain, as is my asshole. When I shit, it feels as if fireballs are issuing forth into the bowl. Some nights I just sit on the commode and attempt to fall asleep there so I won’t have to crawl to the bathroom like some sort of half-human half-insect creation come to life from the pages of a Kafka story.

A nurse from the hospice agency came by and asked if I had any final thoughts I could share that might help others in my situation one day in the future. Yeah, I thought, I have one big one: Don’t get stomach cancer! Then again, don’t be homeless for two years and have to offer two buck blowjobs to desperate old men just so you can get a bite to eat. Don’t do any of that. Be sure and take the path of light and happiness. Get the good job, be a model citizen, pay your taxes, go to church every Sunday. Maybe then you’ll get the blessings that have eluded me. Or don’t. Pretty sure we’re all fucked no matter what our status with the dude in the distant clouds might be. We’re all gonna die, but some folks do it better than others. Me? Shit, I can’t even manage any dignity this close to the end. But fuck it! Dignity is so overrated, don’t you agree?

*******

Nights are not the worst, despite that some soon-to-die people like to say. People who claim night is the bad time have never gotten over their fears of the boogieman showing up when the sun sets.

No, it’s the mornings that always cause the most trouble for me. Because when another day dawns you’re forced to come to the horrible realization that you were not, as you so desperately had hoped, allowed to die in your fitful sleep. Instead, you have been given another day to suffer, to languish in more retching and blood. If you happen to see others off to start their days, be they delighted by the prospect or dreading it, at least they have something to look forward to. What do I have? Well, around ten this particular morning I should be having a shit that winds up being mostly blood and bile. How’s that for a wake-up call?

A social worker who came by to check on me said I was bitter and needed to adjust my attitude. Hey, nothing wrong with me that a good cure for cancer and extra morphine can’t cure, sister, but you just go right on believing attitude is some abstract concept you formulate in that space between your ears. Lemme trade you some of this pain for a better attitude. Bet you won’t take me up on that transaction.

Doesn’t matter. Not any of it does. Tomorrow I’ll maybe wake up again and start this fading life once more. Hooray for me! How brave I must be! Bullshit! I am not brave, I am not wise, and I am not getting any insight out of suffering like a fucking wounded animal. I am merely passing this day and the next to get to the last. What does that earn me? Nothing. Not a damn thing.

I don’t want more time. No, not even one more day, one more hour, not even a fraction of a fucking second. I just want it all to be gone and I want to vanish into the blackness of what awaits me, which is more nothingness.

******

Just after midnight I hear my next door neighbor coughing uncontrollably. Then he falls silent. Guess he got the death I was slated to receive. I take two more pills and curl up for another few hours of empty sleep.

Bring me your cures, but rest assured they will not work. I do not only have cancer of the stomach, it has even infected my soul, which should suit whatever god there is just fine. We’re almost even now, oh great one. But the house always wins. Fuck it! You can keep the hollowed-out body, the faded regrets, and the fragments of a life that remain.

Copyright 2016 by Daniel X. Morrison. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘Uphill’ by Cheryl Russell

New Fiction

Her whole body tensed up, she could feel the anxiety rising, nausea rose in her throat making her feel as if she was being strangled. Could she really do this? Everyone else believed in her but she had her doubts. No choice, it had to be done or she would feel a failure forever. She was sweating despite temperatures being sub zero, anxiety again. She had to do this to prove to herself she was perfectly capable. She would never forgive herself if she couldn’t. The sky was blue and the sun shone brightly, dazzling the brilliant whiteness of the snow. She had on sunglasses to protect herself from the glare that leapt up at her. Her skis were on and she was ready. She glanced with great trepidation where she was supposed to ski. She was terrified, as she noticed it seemed to be a sheer drop down, no gentle slope for her. She wished herself anywhere else but where she was. What made her come back year after year for she only tortured herself? She traversed the slope but as she tried to make the turn anxiety tore at her again, she couldn’t do it, sitting down she turned herself around ready to go back across the slope. Standing up again she made her slow way across. It was pointed out to her that she not only wasn’t any lower down the slope but in actual fact had been skiing uphill. Not bad, she thought, at least she would remember this incident. Every one else skied downhill but as usual she had to be different and ski uphill! Well it was an achievement of sorts if not the usual type. She refused to see it as a negative thing, it had to be positive. Everyone else raced past at high speed while she made her very slow way down the same way as she started, sitting to turn round as she was so sure she would lose control and have a nasty fall. She had been told she had plenty of restraint it was just confidence she lacked but she wasn’t sure about that. Maybe skiing wasn’t really her thing, she acknowledged, but she loved the snow covered mountains and the freezing temperatures. It looked so beautiful and undisturbed. How could anyone not love this. She loved mountains at any time of year. In the summer they would be a lush green, vibrant and alive. Right at the highest peak snow could still be found. She sighed, what a privilege to be in these captivating surroundings. She continued skiing, eventually reaching the bottom and ready for a drink.

Copyright 2016 by Cheryl Russell. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘First Light, Soft Quiet Of Peace,’ by Michael Millwood

New Fiction

Any moment now, she will cease to breathe. It’s only a matter of minutes before the injection takes effect and all the pain is finally, mercifully gone.

It’s for the best, Nicky tells himself as he lights a cigarette and fixes himself a bourbon and Coke. Had to be this way. Was never gonna change for the bettter, so might as well get it done and not pretend otherwise. Nothing was ever accomplished by trying to put back together what’s been broken from almost the beginning. Nicky raises his glass and makes a silent toast: To me. To having the balls to do what has to be done.

He should be crying right about now, he knows, but he’s not gonna. He’s made a pact with himself and he won’t back away from the promise now. Tears aren’t gonna make things any different, not to mention any better. He takes a puff of the cigarette and inhales deeply, as if the smoke can push down the deeper hurts he’s been carrying his whole life.

Shoulda never made the promise six months ago. Seems so long now that it starts to feel more like six years, but it was just January when he nodded and sealed his fate. Well, to be honest, their fate. In a matter of a few minutes, fate will no longer exist for her, and he will be left to sweep up the memories, dispose of the dreams, and call for assistance. Doesn’t really matter now, does it? Nope. Not in the least.

Nicky shakes his head and starts to chuckle. To you, old gal, he says under his breath. You were a good mom, but sooner or later we all reach the end of our lines. Best part about it all is this time tomorrow all your pain will be gone and the house will be mine. Then he can invite his friends over and party as much and as late as he’s always wanted.

No more disapproval. No more shame. No more hiding. If only he’d known sooner this moment would be so freeing. Makes him wish he’d been braver,  more bold.

He drinks to the moment and picks up the phone to begin making the calls.

Copyright 2016 by Michael Millwood. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘How To Tame Time’ by Mileva Anastasiadou

New Fiction

The headaches that used to accompany morning awakenings have now vanished, so instead of running for a pain killer, I am going directly to the bathroom to take a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I recognize my face as I have known it since the era I was living in the normal world, at the age I was forced to abandon it and be placed in this strange place where time flows according to the author’s will, who has been given the right to write about my life, or perhaps the reader’s moods, who reads the story unwillingly, jumping from one chapter to another, without caring about regularity disturbances that may be caused by jumping chapters and paragraphs. A shadow on the rear of the mirror seems to be watching me in silence. It is the first time I see it and I can even detect traces of tenderness and sympathy, but I attribute the feeling to the general sensation that somebody has been watching me since I have been trapped in this strange book that claims to be narrating my life.

It all began some months ago, when I accepted the proposal of the strange man, who introduced himself as a journalist or a writer or something like that, and suggested that he should write my biography. I thought he was joking, since biographies are written about important people, who have offered much to humanity or about persons that have influenced its course for better or worse at the very least. Despite my humble objections though, he insisted on the project.

Unwillingly, I answer the phone that persistently rings.

“I hope you did not regret it, sir,” he states in excitement. I have not heard of him for a really long time, but I quickly realize that to him, it was just last night that we signed the contract.
“I have most certainly regretted it. I really do not feel like participating in your project at all.”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Do you hear me? I changed my mind. I want my life back,” I shout angrily, unable to control myself or my nerves.
“But you did sign the contract sir. You cannot back out now.”
“There must be a price. Name it and save yourself the trouble,” I tell him in a desperate effort to negotiate.
“I am terribly sorry, sir. With or without your help, the book has already started,” he says and hangs up.
He did not have to tell me that. I already know firsthand.

So, this is how I got trapped in this bizarre world, where time does not flow in the usual linear way, but on the contrary, every single day that dawns finds me in a different season of my life. I could not realize this immediately. In the beginning, I thought somebody turned back time in order to give me a second chance at life, so that I could accomplish all the big achievements I had been destined to complete, and I was truly grateful and happy about it.
It took me some time to realize that days did not succeed one another like it happened in my previous life, but it was as if some one was really trying to write my biography, recounting only the most important days of my life. In time, instead of slipping from one significant moment to the next, it was as if some one was reading the book of my life, skipping chapters according to his mood, or even returning to previous chapters from time to time in order to properly understand what happened, thus making time travelling back and forth a part of my routine. In the beginning, all those long time distance trips I was forced to endure from one day to the next caused severe headaches, similar to those that one acquires while travelling long distance trips, until one gets used to time difference. In time though, my body got used to temporal trips and headaches subsided.
The important days of my life came one after another, not necessarily in the linear chronological order I remembered but it was proved later on that something even worse was happening. Not only did they not seem that important any more, but also there was nothing I could do to make them more important either. My life simply repeated itself, as a patchwork, yet still in the same exact way it had happened before. I made the same decisions, chose the same roads, talked to the same persons, without the ability to change anything in order to thrive and prove myself worthy of the writer’s effort.

Our gazes cross for a second, but all it takes is one single moment for me to recognize her. She holds a book in her hand and immediately looks away, as if to defend a space that rightfully belongs to her, which I invaded by mistake. This woman has the same tender eyes I detected earlier today on the mirror. It is definitely her. The reader of a book that has not been written yet, so it cannot have been read either, but she is certainly the one to read it in the future and she will be the one to see below the surface, the man whose story is being written so that he can finally meet her.
The lights in the bar are low and you can barely hear the music. I do not wish to scare her away, but I cannot hold back either, so I tell her the truth. She laughs.
“The opposite is not so unusual,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it is not so unusual for the reader to develop feelings for the main character of a book, while you say that you fell in love with the reader of a book of which you happen to be the main character, or you will be for that matter.”
I hear her even louder laughter now, as if she said the most amusing joke and I laugh along, because my story really seems like a silly joke, although at least now I have the impression that it may lead somewhere nice, to some kind of happy ending to say the least.
“It does not really make any sense at all. None of this sounds valid,” I tell her, realizing how absurd my story sounds, now that I speak of it, instead of just thinking about it.
“It all may be valid. However there is no reason for us to waste time. You can tell me all about your life, instead of waiting for me to read it in the book.”
I do not want to sleep tonight. I fear that I could wake up to an irrelevant time and space and that it will take lots of time for me to find her again. I will stay awake and recite all I recall from my life, even the most insignificant details. I suspect I could be more significant than I ever though I would be. At least I can be significant to her. In my metric system, this is more than enough.

We wake up embraced. Relieved to find her by my side, yet still in agony about the continuity of time, I run to the bathroom mirror once more, as discreetly as possible, in an effort not to disturb her. It is all true. Time counts normally again. Or this may be happening for the first time, I cannot be certain of that. I look at the calendar to confirm my suspicion. The calendar says what I already know. That time flows as it is supposed to flow. Or perhaps this is the first time it flows forward, full of moments that will not vanish into insignificance, but will be filled instead with love and shared experiences. Time counts when you begin to love. Or at least, this is the only way to tame it.

Copyright 2016 by Mileva Anastasiadou. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, living and working in Athens, Greece. She has published two books. Her work can be found in Ofi press magazine, Infective Ink, the Molotov Cocktail, Foliate Oak, HFC journal, Down in the Dirt magazine, and soon in Menacing Hedge, Massacre magazine, the Wolfian, Pendora magazine and the Fear of Monkeys.

‘An Occurrence At Pole 69’ by Gregory Adams

New Fiction

The jump began, as so many things have before, on Haight Street, specifically in a brief alley where Rob, Gasper, Lincoln and Calf were sitting on the concrete, lighting up their reward for a hard day’s begging.

Gasper, a longhaired Midwesterner with a wheezing laugh that earned him his nickname, seemed to know more than the rest of them, which is why he always got the girls. Gasper had Calf now. Calf was too smart to be living out of dumpsters, but Gasper had already convinced her that she was too smart for anything else, so she stayed, and she was his.

Lincoln, a tall, thin teenager with a beard more Amish than Presidential, was Gasper’s sounding wall. He phrased Gasper’s ramblings onto cohesive thoughts, without trying to claim the ideas for his own.

Rob was still Rob, for now. He’d been on the street in San Francisco for two weeks, and no one had given him a name yet. He came West to find himself, but the only thing he had turned up so far was Calf, and Gasper wasn’t about to give her up.

“How do you know?” Calf asked her melodious voice unbearably out of place in the alley.

“Oh it’s true,” Gasper went on. “I’ve felt it.”

“Felt what?” Rob said. He hadn’t been listening until Calf spoke.

“Pole 69 isn’t where the most jumpers jump. The ones who jump from Pole 69 didn’t go out there to kill themselves. But once they get to that place, something pushes them over. Not with hands against their backs, but pushes just the same.”

“You’re suggesting an incorporeal malevolent spiritual consciousness?” Lincoln asked.

“He’s suggesting bullshit,” Rob said. He was high and tired of Gasper’s voice.

“Let’s go out there now,” Calf said, her enthusiasm lighting up the dark corner they were filling up with smoke.

Gasper shook his head. “Not me. Not at night.”

“I’ll go,” Rob said.

“Bridge is closed at night,” Lincoln said. “No pedestrians.”

“So?” Calf said.

“I’ll go,” Rob repeated. He felt kind of melted to the street, but he bet he could stand, walk to the bridge, and hoof it to Pole 69, if Calf wanted to go with him.
####

Calf ended up not going.

Rob wasn’t certain how it happened. Gasper didn’t want her to go, so Calf got mad and stormed off. When Rob moved to follow her, Gasper tried to stop him, but Gasper had been eating out of dumpsters too long to fight Rob. By then, Calf was gone.

Rob headed for the bridge. As he had left the Haight and peeled off over fences and through the shadows of Golden Gate Park, he saw fewer and fewer people, and as the fog gathered, the people he did see became less and less substantial. He began to feel as if he were walking through a dream. The sensation passed when he made the bridge. He was soon again focused on realities, beginning with not being seen, and ending with being alone with Calf.

When he reached Pole 69, Calf wasn’t there. Cars hissed by, but Rob was alone on the bridge. The wild thought came to him that Calf had jumped, victim to Gasper’s incorporeal malevolent spiritual consciousness, but he soon dismissed the notion. Calf was probably half-crazy, but he doubted she’d kill herself over Gasper, and there was certainly no force here. Nothing but wind, fog, and far down below, the waters of the bay.

Rob stood, hands in his pockets. His high had long since worn off. He had come out here for a girl and had found nothing. When no other purpose suggested itself, he looked over the railing. The night was dark, but he could still see the whitecaps as they occurred beneath him. They seemed a long way away.

Rob had read somewhere that a person falling from such a height passed out before reaching the bottom; that the mind, seeing the end rushing forward, closed down. Rob didn’t believe it. The mind is tuned to survival: it would be alert, looking for a way out right until the hard smack at the end.

The hitting would be like striking concrete: the water was settled in place and would be reluctant to allow a falling body in. The jumper would certainly die; might even break apart.
Vertigo came as a sickening, spine-melting, heels-over-head twisting that radiated out from Rob’s center of gravity and shot ice through his bones. His fingers gripped the railing so hard he imagined he could feel the layers of paint compress.

The moment passed. Rob’s head cleared. He leaned back from the railing, steadying himself upon the cold steel spine of Pole 69.

Rob shook his head and began walking back towards San Francisco. It had been a silly errand. He had come to the bridge, risking arrest, to play a game with kids who had nothing better to do. When had his life become so empty?

Rob didn’t know what he would do when the morning came, but he promised that tomorrow would be about something different than begging and getting high. He might even go home.
By the time his boots were kicking through the wet grass of the embankment, he was certain of it.
####
When the Coast Guard fished Rob’s body from the waters of the bay, he had no identification on him. They posted notices with his description, and it was Calf who came forward and gave him a name. It was a brave thing for her to do, as she was held as a runaway and sent home.

Calf couldn’t tell them why Rob had jumped. She insisted that he hadn’t gone out there to jump, but the Pole 69 security camera told a different story.

The video showed a young man who vaulted over the railing without a moment’s hesitation; as if he expected something solid to be there and catch him on the other side.

 Gregory Adams lives and writes near Boston. He has published two collections of strange stories One Day in Hell and The River Above. www.gregoryadams.net.

Copyright 2016 by Gregory Adams. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

 

‘Mother Earth Ain’t No Friend Of Mine’ by Andrew Bradford

New Fiction

We got out before it got too bad, but still it was like hell come to earth at times down in the mines. Wish I had never heard of coal mining, but how you gonna earn a living in Kentucky if you ain’t got no education, no training, no nothing? A job is better than none, Mama always said, and she wasn’t wrong about that.

Started when I was only 15 even though it wasn’t legal. The company would look the other way if you had kinfolk who were already working for them. Since Daddy and Uncle Jack had been down in the mines for years, they let me go with them and work the Danderoff vein until it was picked clean. Took us months just to get to the best part of the mine, dig out that coal and send it down the line. End of the day you’d be coughing your damn fool head off, but it was good honest work and it was better than starving to death.

‡     ‡   ‡

It was sometime in May, a week before Mother’s Day when the explosion happened. Said later it was a buildup of methane gas deep inside the guts of the mine. I was just going in for the day, was standing at the entrance to the mine and suiting up for the day’s work when the world started to tremble under my feet. Felt like I was being shaken loose from my skin and bones. I hit the ground and started praying, asking God to protect me. I wasn’t thinking of anyone but myself for that moment, just praying God would let me live.

Took them nearly a week to clear a path so they could get to the dead miners. Found 57 bodies and buried them in pine boxes the company deducted the cost of from their salary before they turned it over to their wives. Never knew how damned I was until that day. It hit me that one day that was gonna be me. One day they’d be telling some girl I had married that I was dead and gone, buried under tons of rock. So I got out when I could and moved away.

‡     ‡   ‡

Since then, life’s been anything but easy. I was homeless for a few months at first, then managed to hook up with a construction crew just outside Mobile, Alabama. Worked with a sledgehammer and road tar for years before my back gave out.

Along the way I got married three times and had four kids. Three sons and a daughter who died when she was only a year old. Had some rare blood disease they said might have been passed down on my side of the family. Nearly drove me crazy when she passed, but I got by with some help from liquor and tears mixed together. Seems like I can’t even manage to do the job of Dad right.

Now I live alone here in the mountains of West Virginia. I don’t have much, but I do have some peace and quiet most days. My sons all work in the mines now, and I wish I could help them get outta that life, but it’s not possible. I just hope and pray one day they’ll do better than I did. I tried to be a good man, but I failed more than I met the mark. Guess it doesn’t matter since Dr. Baker says the lung cancer should finish me off before the year’s out.

Not long ago some kid from the college down in Morgantown came to talk to me and said it was for some paper he was writing for a class. He wanted to know what I’d learned in my years. And I thought a long time before I answered him and said, “Nothing, really. Not a damn thing. Nope.”

Later, the kid sent me a copy of the paper he wrote, but I didn’t read it because I know good and damn well how it ends.

Copyright 2016 by Andrew Bradford. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘He Comes In The Night’ by Rachel Miller

New Fiction

I’m not gonna look at him, I won’t do it… don’t do it… ok, maybe a quick peek.  I’m scared as hell though.  I don’t really wanna see if he’s still there.  He knows I don’t like him comin into my room at night, I’ve told him. I’m sick of spendin hot minutes under the quilt not bein able to breathe properly.  Most nights I lie in bed facing the wall and pretend it’s not gonna happen again.  If I can’t see him, then it won’t happen… that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Sometimes I fall straight to sleep, those lucky nights don’t come often though, if anythin, he comes more frequently now.  I told me mum about it months ago, but she just thought I was crazy and not to bring it up again, ‘don’t bring it up again’ she smacked me on the back of the head and sent me to me room.  I knew then that I just had to put up with the active nights.

Night time comes round too quick now, an I find myself findin things to do so I don’t have to go up.  I had a bad feeling all day!  I was lying there in my PJs, hot under the quilt again.  I felt like my heart was gonna burst out my chest, and it was so quiet, I was finding myself listenin for things that weren’t even there.  Am I crazy like mum said? No…he’s there, I know it, I’m sure of it, I can sense someone’s there, I wanna look, but I can’t.  Ahh screw it, I dragged the covers off my head, making my hair static, and I saw him…I wish I didn’t look now.

Copyright 2016 by Rachel Miller. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘Moment Of Minuet’ by David Alexoff

New Fiction

He watches her and beams with pride. His little girl, eleven next month, dancing her first solo recital. Hannah has been dancing since the age of four, and now she is the focus of every eye as she dances alone onstage, each move perfectly timed to match the music.

After the recital there are milkshakes with parents and other dancers. The parents cannot stop talking about the recital; the children talk about everything but.

He sits and sips his shake, rolls a French fry in ketchup and wonders about the future. In ten years, she will be long gone; in college, perhaps graduated and on to her first job. How he wants to hold onto these moments, but they will fade just as surely as the season yet passed. Poor Hannah, what will become of her? And what a miracle she is already, he recalls, casting his mind back to the day she was born…

The doctor’s face is what let him know something was wrong. He remembers the doctor saying his wife ruptured her appendix in delivery and was being rushed into surgery to repair it. She would be fine, the doctor told him. He exhaled, felt his heart begin to beat once more. And then he felt that same heart caught in the back of his throat when the doctor half-whispered, It’s about the baby.

Hours of nothing but blurring emotions and questions that seemed to ebb and flow, as if feeding off one another in some kind of odd parasitical relationship. The more he paced, the more helpless he felt. Five hours in, he was told Hannah only had a one in ten chance of living. He could not bring himself to tell his wife at that moment, instead letting her sleep under the fog of drugs they were giving her.

Another four hours passed and finally the doctor came to update him. Hannah would live, but she might never walk. They would know more in a few days. After hearing that, he went to the hospital chapel and began to pray. He hadn’t’ prayed in years and doubted God would hear him or grant his request, but it seemed the thing to do as he waited to hear.

Now, eleven years later, he watches as she stands from the booth and begins to dance a mock minuet with a friend of hers. They laugh at the end of their dance, collapse back into the booth, and finish their snacks.

He stands and feels a tear welling in the corner of his right eye. He is unsure who to thank for all the good he has been granted.

Copyright 2016 by David Alexoff. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘You Always Hurt The One You Love’ by Andrew Bradford

New Fiction

Sure, I suppose it was overly harsh, but how many times do you have to say something before another person gets the clue? It’s all become too much and way too soon, so better to get out now before it all gets completely fucked up beyond recognition.

I don’t consider myself to be a cruel person. Far from it. I mean, I cry when I see ASPCA and Humane Society commercials on TV. And it’s not just because I think animals are more noble and better than any of us humans could ever aspire to be. But at some point you have to be clear: It’s time for this to end. It’s been time for months now.

No doubt you’ll say I have a fear of commitment because I’m 35 and still not married, but that has nothing to do with anything the least bit relevant. I once lived with a woman for nearly two years. That’s what you call commitment! But as it always does, the hourglass ran out on us and it was the right point for calling it quits. Why keep trying to unbreak what’s broken? Is that what life is supposed to be about? unhappiness? I’ll pass on that and find another, better situation.

I’m not proud of what I had to say to make her understand. I hate having to be confrontational, but did you ever notice how some people are just too dense to take the hints, even when you’re dropping them by the hundreds?

It’s for the best. That much I’m certain about. Life is way to short to wallow in misery. I’d rather die alone than be unhappy. That’s a form of commitment, too: Commitment to not being miserable. And I’ll take that.

Copyright 2016 by Andrew Bradford. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.

‘Wondered Doubts In Real Time’ by Andrew Bradford

New Fiction

No doubt you’re still wondering why you asked. It’s not like you actually wanted to know, but the moment seemed to demand some kind of query into the darker substance of some hidden truth.  Then again, are there really any hidden truths left to be uncovered?

Maybe the whole thing has been a gigantic mistake. You’ve never considered yourself to be the marrying kind, yet here you stand, married with a child on the way. Dear God, make this ride slow down some, please! How can anyone hope to be a decent parent at the age of 40? The kid will be graduating from high school and you’ll go to the commencement with what’s left of your graying hair, maybe carrying a cane for support. What a depressing thought!

Your sister tells you that you’ll be a wonderful father, but what the hell does she know? She’s been married four times and her only child is not even in contact with her. This is the woman you’re taking advice from?

Also, consider your own family with dysfunction as its middle name. Mom and Dad divorced when you were 16. Dad has been married two times since then. Mom is slowly drinking herself into the grave. Not to mention the innumerable failed relationships you’ve burned through like so many votive candles.

You saw a clip on television the other evening. Some British artist you cannot for the life of you recall the name of now, but there was a gallery showing his work, and there was a flash of an image–there for half a second and gone so fast you thought it might just have been imagined–an image of what appeared to be a zebra. But instead of stripes, the damn thing had strips of meat. Was that even real? Then again, what is?

So many fucking questions, so many doubts! None of it makes a bit of sense. You feel stripped to the bone, beaten, no wiser than this time a year ago. But a year ago you weren’t married and a month away from being a father. A father?! Me?

You roll a joint and take a deep drag. If she knew you were in here doing this, if she had any idea, how upset would she be? Or would she be cool with it? See, you cannot even decided how she would feel about something as essential as some fucking weed to calm your nerves.

Closing your eyes, you take another puff and hold it as long as you can. Turning on some music, you resolve not to worry about any of it right now. There’s time for that tomorrow.

Copyright 2016 by Andrew Bradford. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission.