Time to kick off Year 2 of this series!
Pieces of Eight by Peter Hartog
A wintry blast welcomed me as I stepped into the frigid February night. The cold and snow had kept most reasonable folks indoors. You know, the ones that worked reasonable jobs, with reasonable hours and reasonable pay?
Two of Stentstrom’s people wearing plastic gear arrived to perform a thorough scan of the room using an alphabet soup of forensic devices that detected everything from fingerprints, clothing fragments and chemicals to shoe scuff marks and old boogers.
The connections were there, but remained vague shapes, too faint to see. It was like collecting breadcrumbs in the middle of the woods. At midnight. And I was blindfolded.
I gaped at her. The consultant folded her hands before her waist, returning my glare with a serene expression. That’s when the subtlety of her ploy dawned on me. Because I’m slow like that. Like a boulder rolling uphill.
Blackwater Falls by Ausma Zehanat Khan
That was his way. He was thorough; he was meticulous. Any other way, he’d be dead, and getting killed on the job was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it’s simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won’t have to hear the screams of the drowning.
We met when we were both majoring in Space Invaders with a Pub Etiquette minor at the Happy Harbor Campus of UMass/Boston.
Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire
She had a pretty mother with long dark hair and a laugh like watermelon on a hot summer afternoon, sweet and good and oddly sticky in its own way. Her mother’s laughter stuck to you, and it made everything better for hours and hours, even after it was over.
The baby came on time, as babies sometimes will, and loudly, as babies always do.
The Perception of Dolls by Anthony Croix, Edited by Russell Day
“You saw what you were expecting to see, and that was after we’d been talking about fakery and false impressions. Believe me, if we’d been playing poker, you’d be broke, and convinced I’d won fair and square.”
“So, I’m a mug?”
“No, you just see the world behaving the way you think it will. In fairness so do I, but I see a world full of card cheats and untrustworthy witnesses. Including my own senses.”
“Whatever was in that house had agency and intelligence. It was playful. But then so are children who pull the legs off spiders.”
Half-Off Ragnorak by Author
Where there’s one lindworm, there’s probably another. This is a fact of the natural world, much like, “don’t put your hand in the manticore” and “try not to lick the neurotoxic amphibians.”
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
Toronto is too small a city to get divorced in, really. My recommendation, if you live in Toronto and your marriage is not working, is to stick it out or move away.
It was a classic tale, and one I knew well, having talked many friends through near-identical scenarios in recent years. For straight women in their late twenties, getting cheated on by your partner is basically jury duty.
I cried, feeling oddly empowered by the depths to which I was sinking, that I could be this pathetic and still breathing was an achievement in its way.
The Wizard’s Butler by Nathan Lowell
He nodded with the devilish grin of a ten-year-old who knows he has a frog in his pocket but nobody else suspects.
How to Astronaut: An Insider’s Guide to Leaving Planet Earth by Terry Virts
OK, I’m not claustrophobic, but if there was ever a reason in my life to panic it would be now.” I figured I had two choices: a) panic, in which case I’d be strapped in, unable to move, with absolutely nothing to do about it, or b) not panic, in which case I’d be strapped in, unable to move, with absolutely nothing to do about it. I chose option b.
(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)
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