20 Minute Fiction
Beasts of God – Day 13
Sorry, the first iteration of this post was messed up… Enjoy!… Quiet. Pure quiet. Pure quiet and the cold, bitter silence that comes of the coldest bits of a winter night in late December. Billy laid in bed for a short time snuffling snot through his nose and down his throat and then sometimes coughing…
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And billy carried the dog. He picked her up from her quaking legs in the parking lot and cradled her tenderly in his arms, part of it a hug and the other a carry, and he brought her into the clinic room where Melissa waited and closed the door behind them. He was about to…
Read MoreThe Close and Distant Valleys
Billy on the rear gate of the pickup truck with his ankles crossed above his boots and the cuffs of his jeans wet from walking through the new snow woods and his chainsaw resting on the floor of the forest, his elbows then resting on his knees and his chin then resting on the heels…
Read MoreA Much Softer Light
Billy woke in the morning and knelt on the cold floor and scratched the skin through the thick fur of the mane of the sitting dog. He looked out the window to the thin crest of light over the shoulder of the mountain, starting orange and rose and fading upward into the dark firmament of…
Read MoreThe Small Warmth of the Sun
It was during the last of the good, warm days when Billy went to visit Dr. Duggleby, a check up before the seasons changed in earnest. Billy walked to the doctor’s office with the warmth of the sun on his back, with a lengthened shadow in front of himself and those things around him; the…
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Billy watched the valley, and the clouds staggered their passage first on the western mountains and then caught again on the eastern ridge. In between was a space of very blue sky, and the clouds were lit from behind by the western sun that fell away as the world spun on axis in the other…
Read MoreThe Pull of the World
Before the alarm howls the morning is on their room through the blinds, lines of it against the closet door and into the bathroom. There are doves in the trees cooing, wringing night out of their feathers. Elk move through the park across the street and their wet fur steams in the earliest bits of…
Read MoreNaramata Road
“I have water for you. There’s a fountain down the road a little.” “Thank you. You’re being very nice.” “It’s the least I can do after trying to steal your bike.” The two men laugh gently. “I’ll never forgive you for that.” “I can live without forgiveness.” They laugh again. Billy and Jim in…
Read MoreA More than Half Full Moon
Billy knew that when the curtains were pulled across the windows of the trailer that he shouldn’t come in. He looked up at a moon that was more than half-full that hung above the pine tree on the land as though stabbed there on the pinnacle branch, and the moon and tree were framed in…
Read MoreThe Last Bits of Light
“I hope the winds don’t pick up again. That was horrible last night.” Billy was lowering the blinds on the bathroom window. The window was open to let in the air that blew cool down the mountains, and the night before when the winds picked up the blinds shook and slammed against the windowpane over…
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