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Machete Smile
March 28, 2010 in 299 Words, Business, Culture, Danger, Destiny, Fable, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Mystery, Short stories, Stories, Travel, Very Short Novels, Violence, Writing | Tags: machete island vacation | by davidbdale | 8 comments
I picked it up on a minor island, the one with the grimy harborfront, I think, and the spine of useless mountains like a broken back along its northern coast as if it had been stepped on. Read the rest of this entry »
Very Early Retirement
March 5, 2010 in 299 Words, Business, Crime, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Money, Relationships, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Blackmail, retirement, severance | by davidbdale | 4 comments
You’re right. Management is at fault, not your hard work. The board of directors should lose their jobs; hell, they should probably spend time in jail, but we both know that won’t happen. Read the rest of this entry »
The Rest of the Story
February 27, 2010 in 299 Words, Confession, Crime, Death, Drug Abuse, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Health, Illness, Literature, novels, Prison, Short stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: aphrodisiac | by davidbdale | 6 comments
Grammar and my own impatience landed me in jail. If I had only turned the page, I would have seen my healthy ex-fiancee smiling for the camera on the day of her promotion, very much alive in the finance section. Read the rest of this entry »
Box of What You Need
January 22, 2010 in 299 Words, Death, Dinosaur, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Health, Illness, Parent, Short stories, Stories, Uncategorized, Very Short Novels, Writing | by davidbdale | 17 comments
Dad has gone and left me with this box of I don’t know what. It has stood like a book on the cookbook shelf with undiscarded Yellow Pages and other worthless paper, Read the rest of this entry »
Bob’s Double
January 14, 2010 in 299 Words, Business, Destiny, Entertainment, Fable, Fiction, Flash Fiction, novels, Occupation, Philosophy, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Destiny, Identity, Loss, Performance, Philosophy | by davidbdale | 9 comments
We hired a double for Bob so that the Bob the world required could be places Bob could not be. We oversucceeded. Immediately, Bob was a fraud. Read the rest of this entry »
Proof’s Hammer
January 9, 2010 in 299 Words, Business, Class Work, Education, Fiction, Flash Fiction, language, Philosophy, School, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: language, Philosophy, School, Threat, Work | by davidbdale | 9 comments
Black and White each had doubts that the other existed, but for White the question had consequences. Read the rest of this entry »
Unscheduled Stops
December 28, 2009 in 299 Words, Destiny, Escape, Fable, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, Mind, Mystery, Runaway, Separation, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Coffee, Snow, Train, Travel | by davidbdale | 8 comments
The 5:42 to Belgenhagen left the station without our engineer. He chased it desultorily to the end of the platform waving his pastry in vain at the empty locomotive car as we pulled out from the shed into the icy dawn with certain questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Middle of the Road
December 22, 2009 in 299 Words, Child, Childhood, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Love, Parent, Relationships, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | by davidbdale | 1 comment
Halfway down the block from where we had just seen Uncle Mickey, Dad stopped the car and sat with his foot on the brake. He’d been crying, I think, Read the rest of this entry »
Going in Hope
December 12, 2009 in 299 Words, Crime, Danger, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Hero, Parent, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Violence, Writing | Tags: Child, Crime, Danger, Death, Fear, Parent, Police, Violence | by davidbdale | 4 comments
Where we live, the troopers are always on call, even if their kids are in the patrol car with them on their way to the shoe store. I’m twenty minutes out, is all Mom said to the dispatcher, but I could tell from the road we took she wouldn’t be dropping me off. Read the rest of this entry »
An Hour with the Ogre
December 5, 2009 in 299 Words, Child, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Health, Marriage, Parent, Relationships, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Abuse, Child, Drugs, Fear, Marriage, Mercy, Paranoia, Regret, Rehab, Separation, Son | by davidbdale | 4 comments
We sit at a table in The Glade—a room named for the sappy paintings of pastoral scenes on its walls. Their grasses and trees are carefully balanced and in them nothing lurks or lives. Read the rest of this entry »
Very Short Novels 
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