Hello and welcome! On a commute and looking for a short story to pass the time? Or just wanting to read fiction without the commitment of a whole novel? Well, you’ve come to the right place! I’ve included reading length and hashtags for each, to help you select based on interests and time at hand. Enjoy! 🙂

HOWARD REED’S BRAIN

(41 min read)

#sci-fi #speculative #factoryfarming #animalcruelty

Most people are aware of the horrors of factory farming but watching undercover footage of graphic abuse is generally avoided. For many it’s easier to read about such things than it is to view it. So how about a front row seat? From inside a pig. No, that’s too anthropomorphic? How about through the mind of a farmer whose consciousness has been uploaded into the memories of a recently deceased pig? Two perspectives, one body, one central nervous system.

MOTHER’S ANGEL

(32 min read)

#ghoststory #coming-of-age #historical #19thcentury

I’d been wanting to write another ghost story for some time and when an idea finally took form (inspired by a news story about trophy hunting), I realized it’d be ten times better in a pioneer setting. Human beings have a predatory tendency to consume and destroy beauty whenever they find it. So, in this story I explore the instinct to take, to possess, to kill, and how its indulgence can shape a man over time.

I SEE YOU

(16 mins)

#speculative #scifi #paranormal #smartphoneaddiction

For this short story, I wanted to write a “Black Mirror” style sci-fi based on a news article I’d read about a real doll on the market that was recalled for collecting private intel on the children who interacted with it. The idea quickly morphed into a creepy allegory about smartphone addiction.

GARRIN

(16 mins)

#ghoststory #paranormal #supernatural #suspense

Years ago I watched a movie called, “The Others” starring Nicole Kidman: a mother and her small children are being haunted by ghosts in a large old house. But there’s a twist at the end. We discover that it’s the mother and her children who are the ghosts, and the so-called ghosts are actually a living family who is being haunted by THEM. So with that movie in mind, I was inspired to write this short story, with a different twist of my own. (By the way, the name Garrin is German for “guardian.”)

THE VIKING

(35 min read)

#fantasy #fairytale #monster

With this short story, I wanted to tell a Beauty & the Beast kind of tale but didn’t want the meaning to be obvious. One of my favorite quotes/mantras is by Emily Dickinson (“Tell all the truth but tell it slant … The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind”), so I cloaked my characters in the past, in the Viking age and Norse mythology, with a Christ-type hero.

THE JAGUAR

(20 min read)

#fable #diversity #inclusion

While visiting the zoo one year, I noticed that if the sun hits a panther just right, you can see the faint outline of hidden spots beneath its black coat. So, I did some research on panthers, leopards, and jaguars and made a fascinating discovery: panthers are melanistic leopards and jaguars. Therefore, a panther can give birth to both black and spotted cubs. With this information, the idea for a fable quickly took shape . . .

SHORT Short Stories

AN OPEN CASKET

It seemed to me death was much like traveling to the moon…

(10 min read)

#existential #death #philsophy

My red-brick elementary school sat nestled against a forest on the edge of town, with a road in front and a soccer field on either side. Though we had swing sets and jungle gyms, many of the kids preferred playing in the woods, and we were allowed to do so as long as we kept the schoolyard in sight. But last Thursday night an accident took place on school property when no adults were around, and one of the students had gotten killed. Read More…

Y2K 

(7 min read)

#rapture #apocalypse #antichrist

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard about him (I took it for granted that the Antichrist was male) and thus pictured him as I always did: A tall sinister figure wearing a black cape or robe, facial features blurry (though his eyes were glaring) and distinctly human. Basically a mash-up of all the Disney villains I’d absorbed over the years. And because they always referred to him as “the rise of,” I tended to picture him a little hunched down and then rising up to full height. I knew it meant something about gaining power over the world but I didn’t know much about government systems yet and still tended to imagine ruling powers as being kings and queens and knights. As for the Beast, well he was to rise out of “the sea” specifically, so naturally that’s exactly what I pictured. A monstrous gorilla-like thing slowly coming up out of the ocean as if standing on a platform, beads of water rolling down his coarse fur, head tilted back and ready to roar. I knew this wasn’t correct though as the Beast was supposed to have several heads (a lion, an eagle, a man), hair like a woman, the tail of a scorpion, and the arms and claws of a bear. Or was it the Antichrist who looked like that? Read more…

I WAS A STRANGER 

(4 min read)

#Christmas #privilege #theother

A blindsided young man can suddenly see the Other.

On impulse he grabbed his phone, donned his outdoor gear, and pushed into the snowfall. Tears froze on his cheekbones and he ducked his face down against the chill. He didn’t yet know where he was going but he walked with determination, boots crunching on the lamp-lit sidewalk.

After a few minutes he stopped at the end of a driveway and turned to face the shadowy bungalow. A faint inner light suffused one window, the rest of the house dark. His anger fading with a newfound resolve, he went to the front door and knocked, hoping his eyes weren’t red. It took awhile but eventually came the sound of shuffling footsteps, the thump of a cane, and the sound of a latch turning.

The door creaked open. Read more…