The smell was putrid, filling the surrounding space with the fetid stench of decomposing skin and the thick, sour smell of pus. Seven months ago I would've gagged, now - well, it's just another day. "James, man, what happened?" I asked, frowning at the oozing, deep crater on the underside of his elbow - an …
Homelessnes in Four Micro Stories.
I saw someone's guts today. By that I mean the gaping hole in his belly was so large that, when he pulled the brownish-yellow iodine and blood soaked gauze away from it, I could see the pink, lumpy tubing of his lower digestive tract, slick with hot, red blood. He and my kid brother share …
Mercy on the Micro Level
“What do you think of when you’re confronted with the word Mercy?” a beloved professor asked as I walked briskly past her office one day. “I think of women.” Her face creased in thoughtfulness. “Why?” she ventured, her voice was lowered and for a fleeting moment I could see her as the inquisitive child she …
Seize and Desist
'God, I hope she doesn't shit on me.' That was the stray thought that flitted through my mind like an alley cat as I held Calva's head off of the tiled floor. I was the first to see her eyes roll and her face contort into the ghoulish carnival mask that foretold of the oncoming …
Through the Eyes of Calpurnia
I had initially read To Kill a Mockingbird at the insistence of my 7th grade History teacher who had, with a wry smile, told me that I reminded her of Scout. Admittedly, the moral of the story was completely lost on my hormone addled brain, and I abandoned the story half-way through in favor of …