Tag: Pets

All Stories, General Fiction

An Overnight Train to Minnesota by A.R. Carrasco

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The other week I encountered a most unusual sport. You may know him. Wilson Mizner is a Broadway playwright, fine art forger, fixer of boxing matches, California hotel manager, and above all a professional gambler in all games concerning chance. His God-given talent of seduction enticed me into one game of cards I will never forget. The evening prior, the quick-witted 47-year-old traded a pistol fired by Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral for a mint condition 1922 ‘green pea’ Aston Martin, which he swapped for a remote ice-fishing shack on Devil’s Lake. He bet the icehouse on a game of war.

 

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All Stories, General Fiction

Also Henry by Tom Sheehan

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Jim Hedgerow was the boss of Riverbank Cemetery’s burial crew, and this morning he was scratching to make sure he had enough help to “open up” a few places for “quick deposit.” At 7:30 the sun had jumped overhead, birds had their choirs in practice, and he had seen hard evidence of overnight guests in among the trees and full foliage at the edge of the cemetery along Fiske Brook.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Fire by Nicholas Higginson

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The groaning and gibbering column of mourners stood over the small, still warm cat. All wept and shook save three. The old man, leaning slightly harder on his left side, looked only at the boy, his daughter’s son. The boy was silent also, though wore the look of the savaged. The third to keep from buckling to the emotion of the scene was the vet who had administered the barbiturates.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Elon by Olivia Parkinson

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The day she left me, she left the fish. The gloopy, dead-brained goldfish sitting in our room. My room now, fuck her. I don’t miss her. She used to ask her if I missed her when she went away in the summer- not really I’d say, she’d come back in three weeks. That made her cry. Why do people cry when you tell the truth?

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All Stories, General Fiction

Loss by Phillip Smith

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My cat is dead.  I know it even though I’m not looking at his still body.

I know this without having seen him.  I’ve been unemployed for four months.  For the past 121 days, when I’ve been home in the afternoon, which has been for most of them, Mittens, my cat, has come downstairs at around two o’clock to beg me for supper.  It’s now five after two.

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