Search Blogs
Tag Search Results For '299 words' (116)
The Other Way Around
Very Short Novels | 19 hours ago by davidbdale
Read aloud quickly, starting now, repeat if necessary. I drive a Vitamin|Energy truck. It’s one of those drinks that looks like a prescription. You’re not supposed to care how it tastes, which is lucky; it tastes like kids’ cough syrup, on read more
Hopscotch for the Blind
Very Short Novels | July 2nd 2008 by davidbdale
When our favorite couple decided to marry and chose for their date a Saturday in July already charged with bright significance, we had to insist, they couldn’t have it. A valiant naval captain had gone down defiantly with his ship defending our coa read more
Trashpicker
Very Short Novels | June 26th 2008 by davidbdale
I spend the week wondering what I can do for him, not just unload but bestow on him to brighten his prospects without, I admit, ever wanting his hopes to glow more brightly than mine and yet, I want him to be happier to receive than I am to relinquis read more
Too Much Ice
Very Short Novels | June 22nd 2008 by davidbdale
Sit here and wait and don’t move. I’m tired of telling you. Good, now stop squirming. Good, and stop whimpering. I need a moment’s peace. Are those your feet on the furniture? What do we say about that? Good, there’s hope for you. Now use you read more
Executioner’s Weekend
Very Short Novels | June 19th 2008 by davidbdale
If paper targets came to life just once, I’d never return to the range—I might set down my weapon forever—but while they’re silhouettes of simple black on simple white, I’ll shoot until the world is out of ammo, and surprisingly the opposit read more
Weekday Executioner
Very Short Novels | June 16th 2008 by davidbdale
Nobody has ever asked me to find anybody they didn’t want me to kill. I don’t mean to complain. Unlike others in our group, I have a clear objective, but it’s not the way I’d like to be defined, as a killer per se, except in relation to a job read more
Disproving Angels
Very Short Novels | June 10th 2008 by davidbdale
—So, what are we looking at here? —You tell me. —It’s a . . . smudge, right? —Charlie says it’s the soul. —He also thinks gluons are guardian angels. —That’s hard to disprove too. We’ve seen it all—or most of it—in this lab, a read more
Temple’s Mentor
Very Short Novels | June 8th 2008 by davidbdale
Between the weeklong mentoring retreat and the four-day money migration futurecasting conference, Temple had only one day left for work, and perhaps because of that pending workload, his adventure in idol worship began that day, at a train platform o read more
I, Witness
Very Short Novels | June 4th 2008 by davidbdale
If tomorrow they locked us all in jail, how many of us could testify our way out? I’ve been looking at mug shot books all morning and nobody in this whole jury of peers collection looks not guilty. I wonder, if they gave me the book of women, would read more
Needle and Thread
Very Short Novels | June 1st 2008 by davidbdale
I might have chosen the needle and thread, thereby insuring myself a long if not necessarily happy life, or the bow and arrow, the significance of which seems obvious. My rich aunts had both grabbed rice cakes on their ceremonial turns around the tab read more
The Boy with Two Birthdays
Very Short Novels | May 28th 2008 by davidbdale
The boy with two birthdays was born on both December 6 and December 7. As with so many questions that perplex not him but those who feel they must render verdicts, the date depends on who defines birth, which would seem to be a settled subject but wh read more
The Second Best Man
Very Short Novels | May 26th 2008 by davidbdale
She’s a glorious bride. I don’t know how this day compares with her dream of the perfect wedding, if she had one, but her face is bliss. I’ve watched her since morning preside over the event like the owner of the day. I saw her take the news ab read more
All You Can Eat
Very Short Novels | May 23rd 2008 by davidbdale
He showed us what was on his fork, triumphantly, as if he had made it or given birth to food. I have no idea what this is!, he told us. What is this? He made us taste it from his fork, reloading as needed, and guess what it might be. We didn’t refu read more
It’s for You
Very Short Novels | May 22nd 2008 by davidbdale
I picked up the phone and Mom was on the line. Mom! Dear Mom! On the phone! Well! What do you know! I heard the fake smile in her voice. She hadn’t dialed and I hadn’t dialed. Our phones had both rung and we had both answered: the network was try read more
Substitute Player
Very Short Novels | May 10th 2008 by davidbdale
All these years later, I still find Barney’s logic compelling. We needed mitts before the start of the season. We couldn’t squeeze the money from the pittance they called our allowances. After expenses, and what the church extorted in those littl read more
Mechanical Difficulty
Very Short Novels | May 5th 2008 by davidbdale
—Kathy, please prepare the cabin for takeoff. —You already said that, sir. Sir? Brian? —Is the cabin prepared? —We’re airborne, sir. —I’d like to hear that from Troy, please. —We’re airborne, sir. What else have I forgotten? Did I read more
The Box
Very Short Novels | May 1st 2008 by davidbdale
I’m not ready to leave the box. The times I’ve tried were disasters. I thought I was the lucky one with a place of my own, raised as I was, hugged by walls, but my sisters had an easier time leaving home. I wonder now what living this way has pre read more
Supercapital
Very Short Novels | April 26th 2008 by davidbdale
One thing for sure, Uncle V’s business—as business, now—was as money as a business can be. Its revenues were pure profit and customers killed one another to give him his fees. He expended no effort to provide his service; in fact, the less he d read more
Overpromised Heart
Very Short Novels | April 20th 2008 by davidbdale
I promised my daughter my heart, forgetting it wasn’t mine. You were there, fat with her, already weary of the burden and beautiful, intolerably beautiful. You made demands: a hairbrush, a mirror, not that hairbrush, ice yes but not ice chips, a de read more
Church of the Two Thieves
Very Short Novels | April 14th 2008 by davidbdale
Here we let the children tell whatever stories serve their needs. We were surprised, though, when they started a church. We had thought, naively it seems, there were enough religions, but they were all founded on faith and suddenly, empty chapels are read more
White Cross
Very Short Novels | April 10th 2008 by davidbdale
This godforsaken gravel shoulder is as good a place—as bad a place—as any to have made your peace with life and dying. Still, you probably objected. Not here, you said, by which you meant, Not yet. This terse white cross of wood driven into the e read more
Feeling the Feeling I Felt
Very Short Novels | April 7th 2008 by davidbdale
The next day, I understood French. Standing by the curb in my bathrobe and slippers on a frosty morning, looking for the paper in the shrubs, I saw the sparkling blades of grass and heard the crystals crunch beneath my feet in a suburb of a suburb of read more
The Rope Climber
Very Short Novels | April 5th 2008 by davidbdale
Summer camp for boys had been a nightmare of fellowship and other itchy rashes. For weeks, he had tried to find somebody he could like or a hiding place, but they had pestered him with bows and arrows, canoes and climbing ropes. The ropes he liked. H read more
Have You Seen This Child?
Very Short Novels | March 31st 2008 by davidbdale
When the night voices tremble in your heart, so do you hear where each of us is, except for me, except for the one who doesn’t call. Your bed is damp with not knowing. Left to the black glass and right to your husband, you shake your head No all ni read more
Strays
Very Short Novels | March 29th 2008 by davidbdale
I saw him surfing traffic in the city and knew nobody was looking out for him. The boulevard at rush hour was impassible. Nobody who wasn’t being chased by a maniac with a chainsaw would have tried to cross it on foot, yet he was running with the c read more
20% More Synonymous
Very Short Novels | March 22nd 2008 by davidbdale
When I’ve finished writing my dictionary, things will be different in this world among English-speaking people and between you and me. When we first learned them, words were something hefty we could thrump with our knuckles the way we test a melon. read more
Money Talks
Very Short Novels | March 20th 2008 by davidbdale
So many words are already written on a dollar bill, it hardly needs more language from me, words as evocative as God and Trust, as if heaven had to sanction my buying a croissant, beautiful words though, about my public and private debts. Legal Tende read more
Girl for Sale
Very Short Novels | March 18th 2008 by davidbdale
Neighbors and strangers are holding bits of my childhood up to the sunlight, the better to judge them. Mom and I have arranged the tables in loose chronological order; attentive shoppers moving clockwise will see my unformed adolescent self unfold in read more
The Purpose
Very Short Novels | March 16th 2008 by davidbdale
I turned thirty in here, I turned forty in here, now I’m fifty and there’s very little chance you’ll let me out, I know that. What purpose does this serve? At least I’m not at large in the world, I guess you’d say. You should only know what read more
Stealing Amy’s Raise
Very Short Novels | March 14th 2008 by davidbdale
The logic of the raise is ruthless and simple, I told Amy. We don’t get raises for what we’ve done: management doesn’t tip. Our raises are like higher bids. If there’s no other bidder, the auction’s over. Amy doesn’t get it. I tell her it read more
Subscribe To