Tag Archives: failure

Made it Way Up, part 3

Originally published in Bewildering Stories. Go to part 1 | part 2… Bernard I never get the chance to just lie there and enjoy the morning. Some bastard was honking his horn. It wasn’t one of the cracked, gargling horns that you get on all the old cars in the valley; it was one of

Made it Way Up, part 2

Originally published in Bewildering Stories. Go to part 1 | part 3… Essa The first real pay check I ever got was from a Starbucks in Renton. For two weeks, I burned my fingers, smelled like milk, and flirted with the addicts. Then, on a Friday that I had woken up on convinced that it

Made it Way Up, part 1

Originally published in Bewildering Stories. Go to part 2 | part 3… Bernard I am a man of my failures. I don’t mind saying it. I didn’t mind, when the rivet gun stopped echoing, saying it to Lane. He gave me this look, more You’re a man? than What failures? Then he went back to

Last Name, part 3

Originally published in MungBeing. Go to part 1 | part 2… It was snowing hard the day of the annual Winter Parade. I met Harald in the park after church. He had already staked out a good spot underneath a big elm right next to the sidewalk. It was our tradition to dive for candy

Last Name, part 2

Originally published in MungBeing. Go to part 1 | part 3… Aaron Telco was a decent guy when I knew him in school. He was three grades older than me, so he would have been perfectly justified in acting like a dick around my friends and me, but he always wore his age with grace,

Last Name, part 1

Originally published in MungBeing. Go to part 2 | part 3… Last night I dreamt about wax and failure. I was trying to read a story to Emma, and the candle I was using kept guttering out. I had to relight it over and over, until the sun came out from behind a cloud of

If the Gods Themselves are Ignorant

Originally published in MungBeing. Sammy came on like a plague of handshakes. “Hey, buddy. How’re you? Say, did you hear about the Wands kid?” I gave him a firm grip and lied that I hadn’t; I barely got the words out before Sammy went plowing ahead. “Yeah, no, he got thrown out of class. Cheated