Short Stories
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Newest Short Story Release: Griffin
Griffin
I used to have a job. It wasn’t really a flashy job, but it gave me purpose. It allowed me to care for the girl I loved. Now, I just hang out around the house all day. I pace from the front door to the back door and back again. The sounds I make as I walk down the hallway echo. Things only echo when they’re empty, right? That's how I feel now: empty. I lift my eyes to the clock on the wall. The seconds arm moves just a fraction of an inch, then another. The movement of the plastic clock is achingly slow, like it’s mocking me. I puff out a breath and continue pacing: up and back and up and back. The tile beneath me is cold, distant. It can get pretty lonely here.
House
It is not a House. It is not the House. It is House. Being a new roommate is a tricky thing. It’s like walking into a conversation that’s already going and you have no idea what is happening. But usually, the conversation is between people and not buildings.
This was the first year I’d lived off-campus. In May of 2019, I signed a lease that got me a spot living in House with my cousin and three other girls. After school let out for the summer, I moved most of my stuff into House.
Sanity
I'm tired. No, tired infers that you were energized at one point or another, but I have forgotten what having energy feels like. Perhaps that’s normal, or maybe it’s a side effect of “worry” as outsiders call it. I’m not quite sure that it matters where the tiredness comes from though, it’s already here.
I crawl into bed, where I should have been hours ago. I reach over and grab my iPad. Clicking into the settings app, I turn the sound all of the way up. I swipe over to my alarms and turn several on: 7:00 a.m., 7:15 a.m., 7:30 a.m. I keep clicking until five green bars light up my screen. I look up at the wall next to my bed where my class schedule hangs above my desk.
Max's Safe House
Located on the corner of Main and Fifth Street, the little coffee shop was busy as it always was this time of day. I sit in the back corner of the shop, scrawling in my black moleskin notebook. I glance up to see a guy banging his head on the table where he sat. From the looks of it, he seemed to be having trouble labeling the cranial nerves on his diagrams. I had seen him around the shop for a few hours each day. The vet student got new diagrams to study just about every day, and would alternate between grinding his teeth and writing his obituary. Sometimes he would skip right to the deathbed scene by laying out on the booth right where he was.
