I credit several people with my tattoo. First Katae, who made the whole thing happen and gave me a forever birthday gift. Next my husband, who puts up with this manifestation of a midlife crisis. My daughter Tory, whose trip to the parlor (do they call it that anymore?) got us talking about matching tattoos. …
Fiction: Tight Flight
I pressed the call button. Pinned to my window seat by the slumped behemoth of a man, it was the only thing I could do. His flesh oozed beyond the arm rest, assaulting my left thigh with an intimate, maddening pressure. His body heat passed through his polyester pants, through my jeans and ignited a …
Christmas. Finished.
On linen and straw lay a birth and a death. God hedged by flesh shepherds, magi. ∞ It pleases us to imagine God just born, vulnerable delivery's slick dross clings the ache of mortality. ∞ It's comfortable: God on bovine-scented straw held in woman's arms and a lowly one at that. ∞ It's Christmas: …
Journey to Bethlehem
The woman winced. Again. Her breath took on a raggedness. Her words broke through clenched teeth. "How much farther?" "Not much, Woman." He'd been mentally referring to her as woman since he found out. It helped. The woman was pregnant. The woman had a special touch from God. He was not to abandon the woman. Woman was …
A Little Edgy Christmas Truth
What I find most interesting about this perspective is that atheists ought to be in hearty agreement with it. I wonder, do atheists generally embrace Santa? The last line of this post is a zinger with which I agree entirely. Why do we do that? I’m truly sorry your parents let it go on this …
The Present, Returned
In the Grand Canyon there is a geologic gap called the Great Unconformity. No fossils exist below this schism. Her timeline has such an unconformity: before age twenty-one, anything that took up physical space and could in theory become a fossil—lost as if by fire. Except the items she chanced to give away beforehand. Those returned …
5000 Words Fall 2018 Short Fiction Winners!
The 5000 Words Fiction Contest is the culmination of our fall class. Students write stories of at least 1000 words, workshop, edit, and post the final drafts to their WordPress sites. Then the students anonymously judge the stories. All I do is tally them! 🙂 As part of our in-class time, students journey through a …
Continue reading 5000 Words Fall 2018 Short Fiction Winners!
Blind at 40,000 Feet & Beyond
Bentley was blind from birth, and he played it right. Flight attendants took pity and if an extra first-class was available, would usher him into the plush leather seats. Bentley would compliment her on how good they felt and drop the line: a touch in the dark's better than a smile in the light, as he traced …
How Was Practice?
The Mind Cheats Long Before the Body Ever wonder where divorce begins? My recently published flash fiction How Was Practice? attempts to plumb this dynamic in under a hundred words. Well, if that’s not ambitious… I'd be ever so grateful if you'd read it and let me know what you think. For more great 100 Word posts, check out …
To You. From the Turkey
This Thanksgiving, stop. Halt the cooking, put your flour-dusted, pumpkin-splattered ear up to the knobby pink mountain of white meat and listen. As you scoop your third helping of baked marshmallows with a dab of sweet potatoes, and your nether regions fuse to the chair, take note. When your uncle walks in wearing a Make …
KL Griffiths 