Nate, Hate, and the Illusory Transformative Nature of Glass
Laura Cody ~ 4 min read ~ The following was an entry in the TL;DR Word Herd 2024 1K Challenge. My task was to create a 1000-word story using the prompts “dealer” and “stained glass window.” This story won 7th-place in the overall competition and was published in the anthology Figments and Fragments. The first day I met Nate, he told me he was going to kill his dealer. I took it with a grain of salt. I’d been adrift for a while, floating between rock-bottom and moderate dysfunctionality after an epic bender had landed me back in Al-Anon. At forty-two days into recovery, I was keeping distance from my…
When You Wish Upon A Cloud
No coverage, not even one bar; the battery was dead anyway. It was still daytime, but there was an overcast and the sky had a perfectly even dullness, so there was no way to tell what time of day it was, much less which direction was north or south or anything else for that matter. A two-lane blacktop road snaked up into the distance and disappeared into some trees, or a forest if you wanted to get technical about it. It also snaked down toward some lumpy hills and disappeared there as well. What sounded like a two-stroke chainsaw could be heard in the distance, but it was impossible to…
“Curtains”
Graham Elder 19 June, 2022 – 5 min read Foreword This story was submitted as part of the inaugural New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) fiction writing contest last year. The Contest rules were very specific. No more than 1500 words, and contestants must either: Write about the doctor behind the curtain or invent the back story of the patient you didn’t meet until it was too late. I decided to try and accomplish both. Alas, I didn’t win, but it was a fun effort. “Curtains” All doctors have at least one case they wish they could take back – a do-over. A case that sits deep in the pit of their stomachs…
Unstoppable You
by Laura Cody May 27, 2021 – 4 min read Featured in The Best of CafeLit, vol 11; 2022 You linger an extra five minutes over your second cup of coffee, luxuriating in the quiet house after what virtually amounted to fourteen months of prison time in G-pop. With friends, you pay dutiful lip-service to the hidden blessings of the pandemic, the silver linings behind the sorrows. You say it taught you to slow down, to enjoy simple pleasures – a home-cooked meal, a jigsaw puzzle, a socially-distanced stroll in fading sunlight. You don’t mention how your house shrunk to the dimensions of a tuna can, how your husband set up…
The Little Killer
Graham Elder January 15, 2021 – 4 min read I was born of a freak mutation and evolved quickly to become a great terror. I am Anoroc Suriv, and this is my tale of global domination. How one became many and infiltrated all points of the compass rose, sending the world into a death frenzy with fear lurking around every corner. Huddled together behind walls of every kind, people trembled at my passing as they waited for rescue that might never come. My story begins in a small town, like any other small town. My first taste of blood was animal. The type of animal is inconsequential. What’s important is…
Bite the Bullet
Graham Elder November 15, 2020 – 6 min read The recent Netflix action movie 6 Underground features an opening high speed car chase scene where a “doctor” is attempting to remove a bullet from a co-conspirator’s abdomen in the backseat of an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio sports sedan. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8106534/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Wait. Why does she have to remove the bullet with such urgency? Does the bullet really even have to come out? The presence of the bullet itself doesn’t necessarily kill you in the short term. It’s the damage the bullet causes on its way to being lodged somewhere in your body that potentially ends your life – primarily by causing you to bleed…
The Book Was Better
Graham Elder October 9, 2020 – 6 min read Invariably, when a book is developed into a movie or a television show, pronouncements are made as to whether or not said moving picture lived up to expectations. “Was it as good as the book?” Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve taken it upon myself to compare and contrast a variety of novels that have either been turned into full length feature films or more protracted Netflix-type series, or sometimes both. Some of these were featured on our twodocswriting Instagram page. Here is a rundown of my top ten, in no particular order, accompanied by brief reviews and recommendations. Feel…
Found: A Library in My Pocket.
Laura Cody August 10, 2020 – 5 min read No doubt about it. The last several months have been hard. Total garbage. But sometimes, buried in the dark, garbage-y muck, are small, unexpected treasures. I discovered one of these treasures when I stumbled upon the Libby public library app. Of course, it’s possible everyone else has known about the digital library for ages, and I am just late to the party. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time. But it doesn’t really matter, because now I know that I can link my library card to an online borrowing service and … read!And I mean read everything – new releases, hot summer reads, New York…
How to create an action hero with feelings
Laura Cody June 23, 2020 – 4 min read Consider two approaches to the same problem: Approach #1: -Lay problem bare under harsh fluorescent lights. -Excise problem. -Fill void with something plastic or titanium. -Stitch back together. Approach #2: -Verbally explore problem from comfort of an upholstered couch. -Break problem down into small pieces; process and digest. -Breathe deeply, be mindful. Aim to get a good night’s sleep -Forgive yourself when sleep proves elusive. Approach #1 definitely has its appeal. It is how my writing partner, Graham the Orthopedic Surgeon (yeah, that’s how he refers to himself, in all caps … kidding) solves problems in our writing. When he sees…
Quarantine (Incarnate)
Day 55, November 3rd Arizona They said it wasn’t contagious, but what the hell did they really know about anything. They had been spouting horseshit since day one. Pure, high-grade, Kentucky-Derby-winning, horseshit. Nate Williams grabbed a full piece of red chalk from a small Ziploc bag in a drawer. He dropped a diagonal line across four hash marks, stood back from the kitchen wall and counted out loud. “Eleven sets of five equals … fifty-five days. Fifty-five days since the power went out.” Fifty-five fucking days. “Don’t worry.” Nate’s head tilted from side to side as he mimicked, “That big ole flare just fried a few transformers. We’ll have ‘em up an’ runnin’ before…
