Jan/Feb 2012

e c l e c t i c a
f i c t i o n

Fiction


(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
 

Blues Falling Down Like Hail

One rainy afternoon, the Führer's adjutant informed him that a package had arrived. Security checked it over and found it clean. But the contents were puzzling. It contained unmarked 78 rpm records. Shall the staff play them and report back? Or would the Führer himself like to hear them?<

R. J. Koshar
 

Why I Hate the Holidays

The only thing that kept me from insanity and murder this whole month was the knowledge that I would be back in the Caribbean soon. I left the smoking, scorched earth of my family battleground in Iowa and started my epic journey to the island of Bequia, where I would spend a few days in seclusion and then sail to Mustique for New Year's Eve.

Andrea Broxton
 

Dave Says

Shelly had heard a lot about this camera. Blue, because Dave had insisted that the doctors were wrong, that he was having a boy; digital, because Dave intended to share pictures of his son via every imaginable form of technological sharing.

Caroline Kepnes
 

Confidante

We grappled through small talk, unable to find firm purchase, but then we happened to strike common ground. Sailing. She told me she had recently bought an older, 31-foot sailboat that she was planning to restore and take out on weekends.

Michael Barber