At the time, he’s sick of it, the heavinesssettling in his shadow limbs. All those nightsmixing with the same old spirits in New Orleans,or rattling chains in windowless European castles.He’s tired of strangers who call themselves expertson him, then walk through his body on the stairscall out with cold hearted threats. So the Shadow Man…
Tag: Mystery
Petrichor
That summer they added fluoride to the water. Our parents did not question that the commies who ran New York City wanted us to glow green in the dark. A decade earlier, our fathers had stopped the stain of evil spreading over the Pacific and Europe. They had no patience for the distinction between fluoride…
Dead Drop
the phonebox stood at the edge of an abandoned trading estateand was easy to missI fumbled for coins in the darknessthe call was brief he spoke without accent he sounded tired contents fragilehandle with care it was a couple of hours before the message went out I watched from a café across the streetmy pager…
Grand Hotel
As a courtesy, the government manlets the manager sit in onthe surveillance. But the cameras are the hotel’s, and the manager thinksit’s his courtesy. The other agentsin the room could set him straight,but their chief signals them to stand down. On the screen they’re watching,a man viewed from the ceiling in green lightuneasily sleeps. Earlier…
Holiday
He asked a simple thing: go for a ride in his car, just around the park’s edge, just this once. I was a girl who felt guilty refusing. We drove along the park in a slow dissolve, like an ice cube on a finger. I watched children my age surround a boy with a gold…
Safe Keeping
The cold storage plant is right on the water. Acres of metal the colour of dried sage. Some sections are taller than others. From here it looks like giant boxes plonked down next to each other, but when you get up close you can see it’s all joined. The land slopes sharply upwards from the…
Third Party, Fire & Theft
The car burns as I sleep fully reclined in the driver’s seat. The acrid plastic smoke wakes me. The smell of burning dolls. A crowd clatters out from the cliff top café next to the tourist car park, the cook banging a thick fist on the driver side window. The smoke curls its heavy weather…
Lost Jacket Blues
The last time I saw it it was stepping off the curb between two parked cars in Cleveland, its pockets empty but for her hands, its top button loose and dangling like the head of a hanged Nazi, though others swear they’ve since seen it from behind and in the somber company of rain, notwithstanding…
Giving Up Isaac
God once said to me,Give me your Isaacor whatever most precious:your mother’s amethyst,a pot of plastic peonies from your first winter lover,or your one functioning kidneywith overworked nephrons,I defied Him.And for thatI live in a no-frill no-hot water flaton East Houston and Thirdamong drug peddlersand dirty pigeons,who squander sidewalk space.Share quarters with a drag queenwho…