Killerfiction

"His body felt at home in the water, his motions effortless. He glided to the bottom, and there, about four feet from the main drain, was the blind blue eye. Spencer let out some air to decrease his buoyancy, and sank to the bottom, the faceplate of his mask inches from the eye. When he picked up the eye between his thumb and forefinger, it felt hot." — "The Difference"

" ... she had read somewhere that "nothing says 'happy home' to a husband like his smiling wife, in an apron and lovely dress, bidding him come to the table, where she has a colorful, balanced, hot meal waiting." Despite the relatively humdrum tuna casserole, and even thought the heat of the oven had made her sweat straight through her girdle, Dolly still thought she was a wife Byron could be proud of." —"Keeping the House" by Ellen Baker

"It was the underside of hell, she thought. Blackberry bushes and spindly hemlocks rustled in the scorching sun, interspersed with the remains of cut pines, stumps large enough to nap on. There was not a good shade tree or a lawn in sight. A grizzled, bearded man, missing an arm, spat on the platform. Another lumberjack, dressed all in dirty wools despite the heat, leered at her, missing teeth. The day itself felt parched, and the air smelled thick, bursting with the climax of blooms.—"Keeping the House" by Ellen Baker

"I hope he realized that his greatest accomplishment was to give joy and laughter. No army or president or prime minister or king has accomplished that. To be the kind of person to use your last couple of bucks to gather wife and kids, load them on the bus and go to a movie; to make every Christmas the best Christmas ever; to make sure your kids had new baseball mitts, as good or better as any other kid in the neighborhood ... "—"Aaron Slick from Punkin' Crick, and remembrance of Max T. McKinney

"He was an angry man who did not like authority, and was not afraid to speak up. He told his boss to take his job and shove it, and then walked home, but didn't tell mother, who had just given birth to me, until the boss had apologized and hired him back. He threw his lunch pail at a DSR bus, breaking a window, when the bus driver started up without giving daddy time to board the bus, and almost caught him in the folding door."—Phil McKinney's memoir of Max T. McKinney

"Whoever built this house would have no way of knowing it would stand for another fifteen years after Sam left. It would take that long for the slow slide of suburbia to swallow up the moat of farmland surrounding it. Even after the house had been dissected in a froth of dust, and the rubble had been trucked away, another brittle winter would circle by before the subdivision contractors could sink their iron blades into the softening earth."—"Love Tracy"

"Whoever built this house must have decided that a shower was an extravagance, and so Sam had hooked up an addition to the plumbing that allowed him to connect a hose to the spout in the tub. It was mostly for him; Tracy used to like to lay in a tub of hot water. Sam never had enjoyed the feeling of steeping in his own dirt. Sometimes, though, after Penny was in bed, Tracy would run a bath and ask Sam to come in and soap her back. They would stay in the tub for a while, sharing the soap and the heat, then hurry to the bedroom." —"Love Tracy"

"Howard thinks about the distance between a new Art Van bedroom set and a cot in a county homeless shelter. It’s a very long distance, he thinks, but one that can be traveled in a very short time. "—"The Lincoln"

“Howard, it’s thirty-six years old. You don’t think it’s going to last forever, do you? If we sold it, we’d have enough money to take the train down to Louisiana, with some left to tide us over until you find a job. This cold is coming on quick, and I’m really worried about Dakota.” Caroline buttons the top of her jacket and looks at her husband. “Did you take my cigs?”—"The Lincoln"

"I was driving fast, and trying to keep an eye on Steven; trying to gauge his agitation. I checked him in the rearview mirror, and when I looked back to the road I was bearing down on the rear of a cattle truck. Several pinkish bovine noses were pressed into the slots of the truck’s walls."—"Being Out of State"

"After the concert was over, we took him back to his mother’s house. What else could we do? He seemed a little better by that time, so we told him to go in and head straight to his bed. We told him not to talk to his brother or his mom, and not to answer any questions. We told him he was OK, and to sleep with the lights on. One of us remembered to tell him to drink orange juice, and to gobble vitamin C if his mom had any. "He made it to the door; I knew that much. I watched him disappear through it."—"Being Out of State"

"I practiced the knife moves at home, in front of my bedroom mirror. I opened and closed it probably a thousand times, pleased with the positive steel click. I can still hear the sound of the thing. Steven and I rehearsed the stabbing scene more than any other part of the play. We had it down."—"Being Out of State"

A short note on how to refer to this type of recording and its presentation: I’ve heard the term ‘sound-seeing tour, and I have to say that I can’t work with that one … we don’t see sounds, unless stricken with synesthesia. The next logical take would be ‘sound-hearing tour, but the literalness of that name is deadly, to say the least. So: After some cranky wordplay, I’ve come up with a textual mashup involving audio and odyssey: Audyssey.

“It’s still fulfilling. Yes. That’s how I would describe it.” She rose from the table and began scraping her plate into the garbage disposal. “Fulfilling. And if you’re wondering, my dear husband, if part of the reason that it’s satisfying is that I’m able to spend time with Arnold, then, of course, you’d be right. Our arrangement stands.”—"Observation Deck"

"He noticed there were no objects suggesting that a man shared the woman’s home. Eugene began to compose a list of items that might suggest the presence of a man; a pipe rack, large muddy boots, a baseball glove--no, he thought, lots of women play softball now, they have their own leagues--a weightlifting bench--again, no, women work out, too--and as his eye snuck through the woman’s apartment he found himself once again face to face with her."—"Observation Deck"