Fiction Stories

“Who knows what Mr. Herndon and Isac Lee get up to when they’re working way down in the bottom hay field for weeks on end?” The way she said it made me see the men and boys I worked with as they were; hayseeds, squatting in the shade of the tractor, shirtless, straw stuck to…

“It would have been just fine if I’d gone hiking naked. People do that up there you know. Luckily, I took your red towel with me. The one with the champagne glass on it. It probably saved my life. It was all I had to cover up with when I had to sleep in that…

I dream gardens; gardens that I want to bring to life. When the chance comes along to turn an abandoned field into a dream garden, I make it happen. This expansive garden of floating water lily flowers may bring Monet to mind, but twenty years later, I dream of the muck and rhizomes below. Twenty-something…

Even when it’s this hot, he won’t leave the truck running when we gas up. I’m the driver, but he’s the boss. He’ll tsk and reach his long arm across the vinyl bench seat to switch off the key. “Son you can’t do that. We’ll blow up. It’ says so right there on the pump…

We can feel the heat but the crepe myrtle allee protects us like a cave. Low droopy branches make it dark in here. Stifling but better than roasting under the sun out there. Weeding and pulling up the deflated caladiums that survived the drought, it’s just three of us in the crepe cave. Three guys,…