fwriction

Today is a day for short, powerful stories. Right? Right. So, here are two that I’ve been enjoying lately: “Dive,” by Dawn West (from SmokeLong Quarterly) and “God’s Man,” by Meg Sefton (from Wufniks, a wonderful new online journal). Please, enjoy, and have a fourth cup of coffee for me.

from “Dive”:

“The cicadas are back, vibrating around us. I remember squashing them with Bobby between our hands when he was seven, I was six. He would lick the guts off our palms while I played sick. If I didn’t, he would tell everybody at school I was a dyke. I didn’t know what it was because he wouldn’t tell me. He would skin them sometimes with his pocketknife; hold up their thin wiry armor. Years later I would cut myself and suck on each incision, slide my tongue across it, laugh because I liked it.”

from “God’s Man”:

“He’s standing in the Cracker Barrel. He has a right to the candy at the roadside shop. God says so. He makes his way to the jars. Saltwater taffy. Peanut log. Seasame honey. It all has to all be right for him to hear the Word. But there’s a screaming baby.  Shut up! He wants to tell the baby. Shut the fuck up! He is losing his connection to the candy, to God’s instruction.”