Short Stories

New Short Story – A Golden Day

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This story was a tough one for me to write, for a couple reasons. The first is that, as you might have noticed from the title, it’s one of the central stories to my upcoming collection, Golden Days, Silver Nights. There was a bit more pressure than usual for me to get this one to fit together. The second reason was that I struggled with the theme of it, waffling between a straight nostalgia theme and a more personal one. Thanks to the advice of a man in my hometown, I went with the latter, even though I felt out of my comfort zone trying to write it. It is at his request that I post this story here.

 

                Days like that were hard to come by. The September air was warm, but held just a hint of autumn’s crispness as it breezed through the multi-hued leaves on trees lining the street. Clouds dominated the sky, but enough sun broke through to illuminate the burnished reds and golds fluttering above.

                Mark Yoren could not hold back a smile as he walked down the main road through campus. The weather was perfect, he thought, and did little except remind him of good times, both past and present. The future was all that troubled him, that day. Continue reading

Short Story – Unsweetened

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She wasn’t there, today. I felt the slightest of droops in my mood. I glanced back over my shoulder, through the glass of the door, hoping that I would see her hurrying across the street to get her coffee before rushing to wherever she worked. But no.

I let out a small sigh and got in line, fishing money from my pocket to purchase my own morning cup of Joe. It was Tuesday, after all, and I hated Tuesdays more than I hated Mondays, even. There was nothing like sitting at a desk for seven hours on the second day of the week, hunched over a keyboard, slowly acquiring Carpal Tunnel Syndrome during countless games of Solitaire. Continue reading

The Grass That Grows – Revised

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So, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve posted on here, but that’s due to the nature of what I’ve been writing. It’s big. In the meantime, here’s the latest version of The Grass That Grows. It’s pretty different in a few key ways…enjoy!

                A single ray of light slipped through the shades over his office window and illuminated the keyboard in front of him. John ignored the minor nuisance, instead focusing his energy on finishing up one last design before he left work. It was already after five.

                In the back of his mind, submerged thoughts tasted the implications of that decision; it was after five o’clock on a Friday evening, and he was not only still at work, but was willingly so. For a twenty-six-year-old man, that was decidedly uncommon. While his conscious efforts went into placing the navigation menu of the webpage on the screen before him in just the right spot, he made excuses for that being the case. It wasn’t as if he had no friends; that was certainly not the case. If he wanted to, he had no doubt that any one of several girls he knew would like to go on a date with him that very evening, in fact. Continue reading

Silver Night – Revised

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While I’m in the process of finishing up a couple of other stories—namely, “A Golden Day” and “Pitch Black”—I thought I’d post the newest version of “Silver Night” on here. The changes aren’t huge, but they’re there. Enjoy!

                The black silk of her dress shone under the city lights, throwing minute glints of silver toward his eyes. He walked only a few steps behind her, flanked by a group of his friends, and watched her walk. She was short; only her two-inch heels kept her from being a full foot shorter than he.

                He didn’t mind. Continue reading

Progress Has Officially Been Made

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Tonight, I’m happy to say that I finished writing the eighth story (out of fourteen) for my upcoming collection titled Golden Days, Silver Nights. This particular story is called “All Those Yesterdays”…but unfortunately, I won’t be posting it on here—at least not yet. This story is, in my opinion, quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever written, and I want to make sure it’s as polished and effective as possible before I release it to general audiences. However, I’ve also been working on another story, which will hopefully be posted on here in a week or two. Keep checking in for it!