By the time he’d gotten home, pieces of his day felt like melted candle wax; surreal images bending and merging into oblique memory. Hope began to seep into him the way Spring does winter, and Simon thought about his life going into bloom. He drove up to the duplex in the crowded, dirty neighborhood and […]
Read MoreHe didn’t say hello. He wasn’t cowering or cordial. Simon demanded to know where the rest of the money was. The job was done, his heart was shorn like a sheep coat; raw and in the open. He wanted his due without the terror of the voice and his brow tensed the way it did […]
Read MoreSimon knew it was how his wife looked when she died; sweaty hair stained with the blood that had pumped heat to her sex only moments before. There was a chorus of emergency vehicle sirens behind him now, but he walked on. Think cereal, he told himself. Think of all the cereal you can buy […]
Read MoreFate moved her like a chess piece. Simon marched, left arm locked straight, gripping the gun firmly. He felt like one of Alec’s action figures and wondered, as the blonde woman in the black raincoat appeared from around the corner, if he would be able to pull the trigger or if the gun would just […]
Read MoreDay continued its somersault between grey and brilliant hard light, shadows scurrying around the jagged edges of the uneven sidewalk and the brick walls closing in around Simon as he strode to Gammons Boulevard. The world went monochrome as a cloud shuttered hope, and he gripped the mask hard, his fingernails snagging in the wool […]
Read MoreSimon folded the letter into thirds, fished out his checkbook and an unused return envelope from his electric bill from the car’s armrest compartment. He then wrote his own address on the back of the letter so it would show through the plastic window of the envelope. It was how he sent his rent, repurposing […]
Read MoreHis journal had been in the foot well behind the driver’s seat of his car for the past year, a victim of a brief urge to write again. Simon reached under the seat and pulled it from a nest of crumpled fast food bags and debris, surprised to see the Cross pen still anchored to […]
Read More#gallery-26 { margin: auto; } #gallery-26 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-26 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-26 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */ Simon renewed his hustle. He only had twenty minutes left before he had to be at the location. […]
Read MoreThe air of the shop was thick with incense hiding the nylon and pressed cotton of new clothes. Patchouli. The scent made Simon think of a girl named Rachel he’d dated when he was in his first year of college, before Daneen rolled into his life and obscured the stars with her gleaming smile and […]
Read MoreBefore hiding the money away, Simon pulled one of the stacks of hundred dollar bills from the package and slid two from the top. He marveled that they were out of sequence – even from different years – and for a moment, cold excitement made a circuit through his limbs, radiating out from his heart […]
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