flash fiction
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Life’s Cheaper After Midnight
The night I decided to become a better person was the same night I learned how cheaply a human life could be priced, especially my own. It was my first night working at the QuikStop, and the strange manager, Bernard,… Continue reading
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Surprise Party
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Marla said, setting her coffee cup on the counter, “but in my defense, I didn’t know he would surprise me like that.” It was quite the jam they were in now. Her affair partner,… Continue reading
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Psychic Change
“I think I’m having a spiritual experience.” It was not the first time Perry had said this. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last. They were sitting in the run-down diner on Main Street, the overhead light flickering on and… Continue reading
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The Beggar’s Cathedral
No one remembered when he arrived. The old man in the tattered robe, barefoot even in frost, appeared one All Souls’ Eve at the edge of the village wood, where the fog hung low and the soil remembered blood. His… Continue reading
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One-Eyed Messiah
All the kids on the block call me the Cyclops. It’s not a name I chose, but it’s the one that stuck, whispered between their bicycles and bouncing basketballs. They don’t know much about me except that I live alone… Continue reading
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The Shadow Across the Street
From his porch, Danny was certain he saw movement in the house across the street. That didn’t make sense. The place had been empty for months, ever since the last family was evicted. Yet in the faint glow of the… Continue reading
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Below the Strip
By day, Rico dealt blackjack under the migraine glare of neon. He wore the tuxedo vest, the bow tie, the fake smile. The pit bosses called him “steady hands,” because no matter how many tourists spilled their daiquiris across the… Continue reading
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I’ll See Your Sin and Raise You a City
You want to know how Las Vegas came to be? Pull up a chair, ante up, and let me deal you the truth. First, I looked out at that desert: hot, dry, empty. God left it blank, like He was… Continue reading
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The Last Letter of Brother Anselm
From the cell of Brother Anselm, Feast of St. Michael To whomever finds these words, I write by the guttering of a single candle, though I fear light itself has betrayed me. What I saw tonight at the altar cannot… Continue reading
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Closer Than We Think
The letter arrived on a night when the wind clawed at the shutters, and the candlelight trembled. Its parchment was yellowed, its ink uneven, as though it had been written in haste or in a hand not wholly steady. “You… Continue reading
God Is In The Radio 