Luther shot the coyote bitch on Wednesday. She didn’t make a sound, just fell ass over teakettle into the defile, blood blooming across her neck and chest. She was dead—there was no doubt about that, then or later.
Read MoreCoyote Gets His Own BackRichard was recording his entry on the day’s hunt when the wolf’s scream of pain cut through the walls of the cabin. He dropped his pen on the open page. He’d seen a rabbit snare a few weeks ago. The trapper must have returned with traps for the valuable wolves.
Read MoreWolf TrappingOn her way out of the coffee shop, Harvey flashed a last flirtatious grin at the blonde barista behind the counter. The girl lifted her hand in a wave, smiling, before the door shut between them. A surge of warmth rolled down to Harvey’s toes.
Read MoreWinter SchemingOh. Listen to the music. Men winding their way home, tired as a birth, tired as a death. The slow death in the mines. Half-broken from cramped agony chopping coal with blunt tools. In the dusk, a choir to sing their way home to sad streets and towns.
Read MoreIn the DarkI dreamed this in Sihanoukville, a town of new casinos, narrow beaches, hot bushes with flowers that look like daffodils, and even now, after nine years of peace, stark ruined walls with gates that go nowhere.
In the dream, I get myself a wife. She’s beautiful, blonde, careworn.
Read MoreBlockedNew Year’s celebrations crashed through the streets of Whitcry in a din of masks and swirling petticoats. Pottery smashed against cobbles, women’s shouts echoed from garrets, men groaned and fought and pissed.
Read MoreDecompositionThe 2029 Northern California Human Resources Conference and Exposition would have long ago gone bankrupt if it had relied solely on the registration fees of the business-suited organization men and women who filled the convention floor.
Read MoreTomorrow’s DictatorUlu lay on her chubby belly playing with her new chemistry set. The living room was her favorite place in the house with its cool wooden floor and many ebony lions, masks and warriors her father liked to collect.
Read MoreThe Chaos Magician’s Mega Chemistry Set“Love is a parasite meme,” she’d told him once. It would have been Amsterdam, with the poisoned canals and a gibbous moon, made green with atmospheric pollution, gloaming over Station Centraal.
Read MoreLove Is a Parasite Meme