short-stories

He didn't give a shit if Shakespeare didn't have glitter back in his day.

At least a hospital stay will give him an excuse to halt the job hunt.

Only criminals and madmen walk into Central Park after midnight...or, occasionally, an actor. (Dark City Lights)

This isn't where I intended to be. Killing a person has a funny way of getting your life off-track. (Dark City Lights)

Cigarette smoke when i didn't ask for it. Never when I did.

This isn't where I intended to be. Killing a person has a funny way of getting your life off-track.

Everyone loves a goddamned trainwreck, after all.

Remove the computer chipslodged in your brain before they convince youthat you__e gone insane_Take a bite out of realityinstead of becominga reality byte.

The Grim Reaper isn't grim at all; he's a life-saver. He isn't grim because he isn't anything. . . . he is nothing. And nothing is a hell of a lot better than anything. So long, boys.

I need to be a vampire," she said. "and I want one of them to make it happen. Michael will do fine. I don't care who turns me. The important thing is that if I change, I'll be a princess."I was wrong. She was really crazy.

What we are about to have here is a holy water smack down!

But I want to assure you, if it__ your last day on earth, even after 2,000 years, I strongly suggest you go for the Versace leaf halter dress.

I never sleep well when I'm on call.

It was as if my sould had left my body, floated up to the ceiling, and was watching me destroy my own career with one deliberately assaultive punch. (Dark City Lights)

You can take the barbarian out of the tavern, but he can take the blood out of your body.

If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly. Ideally, we'll ponder what we've just written or read; maybe our hearts or intellects will have been moved off the peg just a little from where they were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we'll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, "created of warm blood and nerves" as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life.

Later, you told me what your mother had said. How your father, the farmer, rose up slowly. You told me how your mother wailed on the other end of the phone, grieving her loss and complaining about the basketball of a goitre perched on her shoulder. She told you, your father walked onto the veranda and saw a chook floating ten feet above the ground. The chook didn__ flap a feather and just sat there brooding, swaying in the breeze.

I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I__l watch for that book.