February 2012
8 posts
4 tags
Fireflies
La Placa del Sol held a scattering of students and smokers, laughing against the fading of the sun. When that curtain falls, the embers of their cigarettes will wink in the night like the fireflies I imagine you chasing as a child in the wilds of Pennsylvania’s august twilight.
That’s august like the month.
Distracted by the curl of your lips on the rim of your tiny glass of coffee a spark in...
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The Ivy Tower
The letter she holds is just a shade or two lighter than the rubber gloves that cover her hands. Tottering up the driveway, she finds a family cooking out on their back deck.
“Excuse me, but could you tell me where the post office is?” She calls.
A father, a mother, a son just shy of his teenage years look up, the father answers “six long blocks and then a right.”
...
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Pocket Cake
“Hey, man. I’m glad you’re here. Take this.”
I’d just sat down at my desk and here was this guy trying to hand me a piece of cake. Not cake on a plate. But a piece of cake in his hand, icing side toward his palm he was holding the fucking thing like one of those pinchers you see in the grab-a-prize arcade machines.
Put in a dollar. Get fucked trying to grab a small plushy purple whale.
...
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Stand Me a Drink
Kid, if you stand me a drink...
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How Oliver Lightwalk Stole Back Questions for the...
Bird huddled against Scratch under the support pylons of the Brooklyn Bridge. Construction had just begun so there was scant protection from January rain that fell from the clouds like a musket volley.
“Dammit, Bird. Give me some space to breathe.”
“Sorry, Scratch. I’m cold.”
Scratch gave a long-suffering sigh, but put his arm around him.
“Just had to do...
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The Furnace
Beneath my glass I found a cocktail napkin with the following on the back. For not the first time, I was glad I do not soil my whiskey with ice. A perspiring glass would have ruined that message in its blank ink that began with:
“By the time…”
Here is what followed:
” …you read this, I shall be gone or dead or something even more permanent. In any case, my voice...
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A Farewell to January
For everybody out there who was reading these poor words before, to all those who stumbled upon them during, and to all who may read them in the future, a solemn thank you.
Thank all you readers for being the eyes and the hearts to which we offer ourselves.
Thank you for your patience, your forbearance and your latitudes of understanding.
I am grateful. Without you, there would not be...
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January 2012
29 posts
4 tags
Teak
Our sloop sits proud in the water. Shoulders back and her nose in the air, trying to appear proper but you can feel her straining to ride the wind like quarrel from crossbow, and Christ would you please punch through my armor?
Gray-bottomed with blue trim, teak decks polished by the stroke of dancing feet, yours and mine, the brush of our gripping hands. When she lets down her hair its bleached...
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I Wish This for You
The following was found tucked inside a used paperback picked up for a dime in a vintage shop in Boulder. The image on the postcard had long since faded to nothing, but the following endured in a tiny, precise hand:
Dear Son,
Here is a truth of life.
Pay attention.
A young couple alone at the middle of a dance floor, might as well be two fireflies in a mason jar. Wrapped still in their...
5 tags
Foot Races and Discord
Don’t ask me how I survived in that world of dust and sun, where the men too crazy to beg sit in alleyways and point revolvers at their own heads, manically dry-firing on vacant chambers. Where a pawnbroker would sell you angel’s narcotics across the table made of a side-panel from the Arc of the Covenant.
It was a train took me away from here, and a train that brought me home if I...
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Bone Us Post 4
There was no helping it,...
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Elements of Fortune
Pronouncements of money, love, children had come and gone in the back room on Broome Street. The best part was sure to follow when a man in a black broadcloth suit and a threadbare bowler hat burst in on the fortune teller.
To the customer in the chair he directed a terse: “Get out, rube.”
The fortune teller, a dark-eyed beauty with a nose as crooked as her business winked at the...
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Audio version of today’s Januariad story:...
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Boot Heels on the Bar Floor, Part II
“Can you dance?”
Condescending prick, she thinks and looks at his outstretched hand. If this had been the first time she’d seen him, she might have just let it go, hand and offer both.
But she was bored and she’d been watching him. His mouth was set and a little grim, but it still curved at the corners like a sturdy shot glass. Like he’d known how to smile once, but these days he was trying...
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The Januariad 2012
The Januariad is a fiction project in which several somewhat foolhardy writers produce new stories every weekday in January. The pieces must be complete, readable and begun and finished during the 24-hour period of that day.
The project will, at the close of today, have just passed its halfway mark.
Tumblr is awash in fantastic writers. I’d like to introduce those of you out there to a...
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Let's Motor
These fucking hospital beds, I swear it’s like they make them this uncomfortable on purpose. Jesus Christ, it’s not like I want to stay.
The food sucks, the television’s worse and whoever invented the idea of the sexy nurse has never been laid up in intensive care waiting to die. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, they’re very sweet and professional, but...
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Corpus Pretereo, Again
Hey folks,
So this is another shameless plug for my story “The Carnival,” published in the ebook anthology, “Corpus Pretereo,” available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for their respective e-readers.
But I just figured something out.
If your eyes can stand it, you can the entirety of my story for free through Amazon’s preview system. No purchase necessary....
Savage Imaginations: Porter's Notebook
tumblrfiction:
— Justin Porter (photo credit: Dan Mandell)
I met Justin Porter out near Tombstone, where he was standing knee-deep in a river of blood, panning for nuggets of story. He’s since moved on, upgraded his hardware, and now he’s doing the kind of work that requires dynamite, a steam shovel and blast goggles, mining a deep vein one wooden bucketful at a time.
You can hear angel...
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The continuing adventures of that miscreant scrap...
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Bone Us Post Three
After several weeks at Reader’s Digest, bored of t-crossing and lusting after those union jobs with their dots and their I’s, Januariad Post got into trouble.
Ain’t that the way of the world? Folks’ll say you can’t put a square peg in a round hole. That’s a lie and they know it. Shave it down at the sides and bang it hard enough, it’ll creak home, but...
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Audio version of today’s Januariad Post,...
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Thirteen Jars
Following a man who travels between the worlds has brought me to this place of cold gray and squalling lives. No matter how bright the sun, I doubt it could ever wash the gray off of this strange city.
The first time I had given chase, I had hopped the freight train just behind him. I doubt he’d noticed me, but he slipped me at the border between our worlds. Thinking him gone for good, I...
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First Avenue
Swaying on the subway, he’d nearly lost his shape in the baggy rangers hoodie. It hung to his knees and flowed with him like molasses as he started to slump. First his left eyelid, then his shoulder and the arm attached to it extended to the ground like it wanted to catch him or race him to being prone.
Before he could get there, his companion gave his shoulder a gentle whack, bringing him back...
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Audio version of today’s Januariad Post,...
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A Natural Progression
1.
A soft and haunting call dragged them from their dreams and their bramble of limbs and sheets.
“Are those doves?” Her voice was thick.
On the other side of the curtains, a pair of little round shadows shuffled and bobbed on the chipped iron of the fire escape. They sat up in bed, disturbing the smells of whiskey sweat, cigarettes and sex that had become trapped in the...
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Last week I wrote the following:
Bone Us Post...
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Januariad 2012, Week 1
Well, the first week of the Januariad just drew to a close and those participating can draw a collective breath.
As a brief explanation, the Januariad is a writing project created by Jack Rusher in which those involved write new, complete and readable fiction every weekday for the first month of the new year.
Below are the tumblrs of the participating writers. Follow them, you will not be...
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Bone Us Post Part 2
Januariad Post got his leever stitched shut in the prison hospital. The guards had rescued him from the swarm of stories that jumped him in the yard, bleeding black by then and fading from the world.
He’d been reaching eagerly for that white light, put on his shades and everything, but the screws and the medics had other ideas.
Also they had staples and catheters, his blood type is AB negative...
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Djinn
A thumb smudged out the hollow of my chest, pressing down upon me and pinning me to the earth, to the soft chair at my back and beneath the presence bearing down upon me. It was a shadow, a wraith, a vast and knowledgeable weight.
Or that could have just been the chronic we were all smoking.
Above us, Corsican food was prepared in a tiny kitchen that could not comfortably hold two people, and...
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Frankie Comes Out
When Frankie opened the door to his apartment, Dell strode in stripping off his coat and running his mouth a speed or two above normal.
“Dude, so what’s the problem? What was so fucking important you had to drag me away from the bar? The tits on that bartender, my god. I think her name was…”
Dell trailed off as he looked around.
“Frankie, what the fuck is...
4 tags
Dollar
Before she walked onto the train platform, he’d never seen a pink velour sweat suit in an adult size. She shuffles along on pink sneakers like sad clouds, a slight gut poking from beneath a t-shirt that announces she’s sexy, or juicy or something.
The specifics get lost in the glare.
Her cheap doorknocker earrings remind him of homeroom in high school, of Silvia talking shit with the...
6 tags
The Handkerchief
Tomorrow the gutters will run with streamers, rainbows singed at the edges by the street, laying fallow and forgotten.
But that is tomorrow.
Tonight the air is aflutter with wishes for midnight kisses, numbers written on damp bar napkins with running ink, promises for the new year, lover’s confetti and dreamer’s cheap paper horns.
Tonight something from the shadows has wrapped its...
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The Januariad 2012 (Dear God Where's my coffee?...
So,
January is here again and with it the Januariad in which a few intrepid writers post new fiction to their tumblrs every week day in January. The rules are that the piece must be complete and must have been written that day. New work starts tomorrow.
For tonight, I am re-posting one of my favorites of mine that was turned out last January. And for those of you following, these are the other...
Januariad 2012 →
jackrusher:
Every year a rotating cast of reckless writers undertake the challenge of crafting and making public one complete piece of prose — any form, any style, any length, so long as it’s complete — for each weekday in the month of January. The rules are simple: each piece must be written entirely…
December 2011
4 posts
Dear all of you,
A couple months ago, an ebook anthology titled “Corpus Pretereo” dropped with my story “The Carnival” between its virtual pages. The editors have written to all the contributors and asked us to plug the collection again and so I am going to bore everybody here with this a second time. For those of you who’ve already seen this, I apologize for this...
4 tags
Ping Pong
“Morning, man.”
“It’s half past eleven.”
“Uhhh. Yeah.”
“What happened to you last night? You get drunk?”
“Scotch. Scotch happened.”
“I thought you were gonna take it easy.”
“There might have been a girl involved.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She rolls up next to me and says ‘where’s your...
5 tags
Bro, I'm Stuck, Bro
“Dammit, Shirley’s gonna kill me.” Nicky whined
“What?” Angelo asked.
Nicky pointed at his feet where the toe of his new black and white wingtip was stuck in the business end of a severed head.
“For Christ’s sakes, Nicky, get your fuckin toe outta his neck, already. What did you do? Trip on it?”
“Yeah. I think it’s stuck,...
5 tags
Trying to Make a Call
I was 22 when I went looking for the devil. Lost my virginity first. I know. Late bloomer. Figured if my little errand went sideways I’d at least have that to think about for a fiery eternity. Sweet note she left me in the morning. Too bad my name’s not George.
I wasn’t raised god-fearing, so I first heard about Satan when “Devil Come Down to Georgia” played on the...
November 2011
2 posts
3 tags
Turtle and Goldfish
He laid a hand on the tank and the turtle swam into the reflection. From this angle it looked like he was cupping the small animal in the palm of his hand. Greens and pale orange lines decorated its shell, and its black eyes regarded his blue ones with what he imagined to be tenderness.
He smiled and thought: from this tank, turtle, you’ve watched me fall in love twice.
The turtle splashed a...
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Dear Roomie
Look, I know we both work a lot and we’re busy. That’s cool and all but there’s some things we’ve gotta address, bro. Like, you’ve gotta stop drinking all the beer and never buying more. Last night I was really looking forward to sitting on my ass and popping a cold one, but I had to make do with water. Thanks for leaving the empty bottle in the fridge, though.
And I’m cool with occasionally...
October 2011
5 posts
1 tag
When it Rains in Brooklyn
The rain in New York City tonight is a curtain call none of the harlequins are heeding. Four in an alleyway play catch with a rusty switchblade and two more inside a deli, buy the cheapest beer they can find because they like the taste.
Across the street a transgendered punk rock wannabe is arguing with the bartender over the ethics of a vintage fur hat, while the old men outside the gyro shop...
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Corpus Pretereo Goes Live
The new ebook anthology is live and my story “The Carnival,” is leading it.
A young boy with asthma searches for his mother on the streets of New York City during the 19th century. Worried and sickly, he leaves the safety of his home for the harsh streets and the bitter cold of January to find her. In the process, he discovers something incredible.
...
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Does Anybody?
I woke up in a dark room full of doors. Most of them were in a proper place for doors, in walls and with attached hinges, looking like they actually went somewhere. Off to a side in a velvet shadow was a pile of loose ones. I stood up, brushing myself off while I looked at the outline of my body in the dust on the floor.
One door led onto a magnificent sunset, across fields of red rock and...
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The Shore
Gulls tooled the air watching the invaders, the beach people with their easy food and tempers. Screaming to each other, plaintive wails above the Jersey surf, they alight to scrap over what you’d thrown into the sand.
Beach hamburgers laced with grit, washed down with gasps of ocean air became the strength that flowed into your sickly body, now turning gold and healthy beneath the July...
September 2011
3 posts
2 tags
The Fisherman's Love
She waits on the deserted stone wharf as my small fishing boat pulls away on waves colored iron and striped white. The black tangles of her hair whipping in the late Autumn winds, and the flush of her skin provides a stroke of color across the monochrome of our village. Just last night I had laid her down upon the soft coverlet and tasted her mouth.
In the beginning of our courtship I...
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A Very Short Story
In expression of regret, of pain, he sat at the desk in his head. A beautiful, roll-top affair he’d have been embarrassed to own had it been real.
Smooth paper, the pen like an extension of his arm and it dragged ink across the unblemished white with the slickness of a pond-skimmer. Trails of a deep and constant black, sentences never finished and paper discarded.
Thousands of words,...