haiku 41

Filed under: haiku

wrapping paper
holiday bows, boxes -
burning barrel

Fiction: On Patrol

Filed under: fiction

Nash had hoped everyone would just leave the subject alone. They all knew what day it was and where they were and there was no point in talking about it.

“Sarge, it looks like ol’ Santy Claus has forgotten us,” Williams said.

“Yeah, again,” Borgerz agreed.

“Leastwise, there wasn’t a beautiful girl or any discharge papers in my foxhole this morning,” Williams continued. “Not even so much as a drop of holiday cheer.”

Nash cursed to himself, but as the sergeant he felt obliged to do a little something for morale and talk to his men. “Do I have to be the one to break it to you guys about Santa Claus and Christmas miracles?”

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haiku 40

Filed under: haiku

snow falls
on sawdust falling
on snow

Fiction: Closet Historian

Filed under: fiction

When a guy gets laid off, he gets to be pretty familiar with the bedroom ceiling. Anything you want to know about mine? Didn’t think so.

You also get to know all the sounds the house makes. Sounds you didn’t know about because you were at the job site all day. But three or four days into unemployment and I know every sound my house makes.

And just for the record, my bedroom closet doesn’t generally make a sound like a hundred AA batteries falling on the floor. But sometimes it does. Like when a time traveling historian uses it as a continuum portal. His words, not mine.

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haiku 39

Filed under: haiku

weatherstripping and
tempers both brittle
bitter cold

Fiction: Code Prism

Filed under: fiction

The man sat down on the park bench next to the middle-aged woman reading a newspaper. He petulantly snapped open his own newspaper to the middle of the sports section.

“What is so important we had to meet right before the job?” he asked with quiet asperity.

“Code Prism.”

The man clenched his newspaper more tightly, wrinkling it. He stared straight ahead, not seeing a word.

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haiku 38

Filed under: haiku

first snow
dogs huddle
in the windbreak

Fiction: Number’s Up

Filed under: fiction

Creston Fulmont Jr. smiled at his computer’s monitor. Wall Street was loving his layoff of one-third of Fulprise Corp.’s employees. The company’s stock would likely set a record by the end of the day.

He looked up and continued to smile at the long rows of gold-framed magazine covers that bore his face. A more introspective man would have been at least mildly curious about having his face on the cover of Seventeen, but Fulmont took it as his due.

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haiku 37

Filed under: haiku

mother angus
grooms her calf
after Thanksgiving