Fifty Words

New weekly fiction from the author of Fifty Words.

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 22:30:00 -0600

New weekly fiction from the author of Fifty Words.

Thanks for reading.

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:45:00 -0600

Thanks for reading.

one year of fifty words

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Thanks for reading.

the letters

Fri, 15 May 2009 17:21:16 -0600

These are for you, she said. Give them back to me when you mean it. They were my letters to her, wrapped in a pink ribbon, penned in medium black ink, written over weeks that turned months. Hopelessly devoted, they said. But never doubt, they said.

I still have them.

that's me

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:46:00 -0600

I wander. I click and clack. I breathe black smoke. I carry the sun and I carry the moon. We run through forests and we run through valleys and part for tunnels long and bright. That familiar humming in the night, that sonorous whistle breaking morning, that’s me. That’s me.

try again

Wed, 13 May 2009 16:26:03 -0600

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see your face. I see your blue eyes and blushing cheeks and puckered lips, drawn by the brush of memories, daubed by the finger of God, brightly brokenhearted, soft and feminine and delicate. Baby, I wish we could try again.

I’d try again.

the face

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Every face tells a story, he said to us. When we walked on the streets that day we saw them, in the old man standing outside the coffee shop, in the young woman sitting in the park, in each other’s faces when we came home after a long fruitless day.

the comet

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Every hundred fifty years I come for you in dashing gold and blue. Hello, I say, from my shroud of stars, raining light. Hello, you say, waving a handkerchief, white with lace, trimmed with tears. When I finally burst over the mountains frosting the horizon, we do not say goodbye.

the cheer

Fri, 08 May 2009 14:03:05 -0600

He’d always been so ungrateful: sour when snow glittered overhead, rueful when rain whispered soft behind him, cross when clouds galloped across the perpetual pastures of sky, and weary even when the wind carried leaves in lines of color, a signature of cheer to another glorious day on planet earth.

last words

Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 -0600

These are the last words. Time will turn them to fossils of left-justified Georgia, but the old ghosts will remain to haunt me with memories remembered and dreams dreamed and hopes hoped. We are encouraged to shine on.

Besides, you have your own pictures in words, and mine cannot compare.

there was

Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 -0600

There was that fall on the ice, his jeans torn and leg bleeding. There was that spring, bright and blooming, when she told him she was getting married. There was the accident, a dash of tire marks, metal crumpled like paper, Death watching amused from the shadow of the overpass.

the note

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 -0600

There it lay, tucked shyly between a bagged egg salad sandwich and a juice box fresh with condensation. The note waved stilly at him, a flag of surrender, of peace, or both. Between bites of banana and dollops of pudding, he ruminated on Abraham Lincoln’s angel mother, and his own.

she was beautiful

Mon, 04 May 2009 21:17:28 -0600

She was beautiful, and not the kind you see in movies, features glowing in soft focus, soundtrack streaming serenely. She was beautiful, and not the kind you see in magazines, beaming from the rack with shining eyes, caught between glossy images of unshaven men and overpriced purses. She was beautiful.

brawley

Fri, 01 May 2009 09:00:00 -0600

Brawley wears a gold helmet and a black leather bomber’s jacket. 42, it says on the sleeve, with arrows. There’s times he’s been and there’s times he’s being and there’s times he’s going to be. When he takes off his mask, which he’ll never do, you’ll see what I mean.

cellar door

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:00:00 -0600

Unlike Shakespeare claimed of himself, he was born under a rhyming planet. He tied the words off in knots, like a cherry stem under his tongue, lolling out from teeth to palate and back again, like an arrow shot through branches reaching sky, like the words cellar door. Cellar door.

stars

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:14:00 -0600

What if there were only a handful of places left in the whole world where you could look up, and see the stars, and not just a lightly salted bread of night, but a whole beach of stars, enough to be buried in, enough to build castles in the sky.

1982

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:00:00 -0600

The circumstances of my birth were anything but exceptional. It was early morning, just a slip of light sneaking around the shadows, making the blinds glow. It was 1982, so I’ll let you imagine the clothes people were wearing. The rain was a quiet sprinkling overhead. They named me Ben.

the days

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0600

The days were lived out in fear, eggshells walked on, voices in whisper, eyes fast to the ground. When the lights moved with morning, they would pretend to walk in the sun and carry their kids to the car and dance to the old tunes, like before the darkness came.

like his grandfather

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0600

He had blue eyes, like his grandfather, so they named him Henry. He wouldn’t be here long, but they couldn’t have known. When the rains fell, and they were wet with grief and tired with tears, he made them happy again just in the remembering of him. Like his grandfather.

sometimes the dreams

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0600

We are always having the dreams. Sometimes they are black and white and still. Sometimes they are Technicolor and sad. Sometimes they are places we have not yet been and will not go. Sometimes we do not remember their most important parts. Sometimes we do not remember them at all.