What Happened to Danny?
Across the alley I see her, lathering, sudsy soap rolling down her back. A joint, a Diet Pepsi and the hopes for a hard on from a woman who knew he spied on her and didn’t pull the shade down.
The American Mystery | Part One
The events I record now are hardly my own, but rather a tale of an extraordinary detective and his ever-faithful friend. I was merely along for the ride. This is a tale most grim about a case that would become one of America’s most unsolved mysteries.
Noble X — Episode 17: Brothers
“Why are you driving with your hazards on?” Carefully merging into the flow of traffic, John states simply as if talking about the weather, “I am slightly a hazard right now. I know that I’m not well and I want to communicate non-verbally to the other drivers on the road that I am a hazard.”
Noble X - Episode 16: Hazards
He stands to admire the puzzle of misdirection he has laid. The blinking red light is subtle, set against the red canvas duffle. His eyes stare into the pulse and he ponders, “Is the blinking red a warning?”
Noir Santa Claus
The Green Snowflake: A Christmastime Story
We all lean in and blow on the cake candles. Hollering and hugging. Laughing and clapping at once. It’s the sort of moment you know you can’t keep, just like you can’t freeze time, so instead you just look right into everyone’s smile and wish on the future for more moments just like it.
Noble X — Episode 15: Dress Rehearsal
Colin and Anthony ask about all the new writing on the walls. “Is that permanent marker, dude? What does it mean?” and Thomas, while mostly silent, is visibly disturbed.
Noble X — Episode 14: Reflections
Words overlap and intersect, resembling the scribbling of a small child. Ink changes colors. Calm letters turning jagged and violent, then smooth again.
The Exclusive Interview with Lee Harvey Oswald 55 Years Later
He mostly listens to the radio — the local NPR station — but he makes sure to watch Jeopardy! each night. And he consumes Seinfeld reruns like they are keeping him alive.
Tomorrow Will Be Late
She kept running. Wind whipped at our hair and the frenzy in the silhouette was beautiful. I had never been out this far before. Hard to believe home was tucked into one of those cobalt corners of stylized steel that loomed like a frozen storm at the horizon. And so too when I turned again there another storm right in front of me.
Noble X — Episode 13: Suits & Supplies
“Have no fear, David. I’m okay. I just need to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Sadly, he would not.
With his students gone, John tries to save face, approaching Sally. Her classroom aide Amy has disappeared and they are alone.
Noble X — Episode 12: Evidence Mounts
Something about the way she noticed his clothing seems significant to John and an overwhelming urge to record this interaction immediately rises inside him. “I need a notebook,” chases its tail in his head.
The Passing of the Hat: A Halloween Story
The harvest moon hangs heavy in the velvet embrace of the sky. Near the curled shoes of Bella Baker, a toad jumps into taller grass. The song of crickets rises and falls. The crisp air of Samhain finds all exposed flesh and gives it a little nip, just enough to remember that one is alive.
How To Get Rich Using Possession
I’m laying there, terrified, paralyzed, praying, shaking, listening to my ragged breathing and pounding heart. But nothing happens. Is this some kind of nightmare? Am I having… what do they call it, sleep paralysis?
Noble X - Episode 11: Internet Famous
Conversations with Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut, two of his favorite writers, at the same time! John feels very fortunate to be able to communicate so openly and honestly with so many of his heroes, alive and dead.
Love Curse
Fast & Short is a flash fiction collaboration between eight Literate Ape writers. Each was tasked with authoring one piece of flash fiction that would be combined to create a single short story. The writers’ flash fiction needed to serve two purposes: 1. Stand alone as a unique piece of flash fiction and 2. Serve as a vehicle for building a larger story and driving that story forward. Over the next two weeks, Literate Ape will publish all eight flash fiction stories individually with a link to the growing compilation.
Free the Prisoner: Book Excerpt from "Fallout Princess"
Her freedom hard-won, her love finally secure, Gaia must sacrifice it all to rescue a friend falsely accused of kidnapping her. But to do that, she will have to face the warlord and his army of soldiers. Can she rescue him and still retain her new life?
Identifying the Corpse on the Blue Line’s Third Rail
I turned around. There were wakes of glistening human coolant running down this woman’s forehead. They were almost as long as her airbrushed and bedazzled fingernails. It was too hot for a weave that thick. She kept tapping at it, itchy from all that sweat spewing out from the top of her head. The nails, the hair — how does she function in this kind of heat? There’s no way she worked a desk job, or any job that requires her to type on a keyboard of any kind.
You do?
“I see this shit all the time working for the CTA,” the sweaty woman said. “He’s just some gutter punk.”
Rib Of Twilight
He wanted to know if I had anything that belonged to her, or what kind of things did she leave behind? And that gave me pause, because I’d never thought of her, or her case, that way before.
Then the question for me got caught between that place where you consider what you might leave behind and what is left to you, which is kind of all the same thing. Like a big merry-go-round of belongings all changing hands from life to life.
The Victory of Medusa: Correcting the Record
Legend carries falsehoods of my death. Lore was written by the gods, and therefore was written by alcohol-soaked ink and sex-crazed confusion.
There was no thunder, no glowing doorway, no mysterious wind blowing through the apartment, and no choir of angels politely alerting me that physics had submitted its resignation.
The deck simply felt heavier.