''A Note Before We Begin''
The title of this anthology, while true, is disingenuous.
Yes, I should always be working on my novel, but writing these stories has actually been a boon to that process rather than a hindrance. Pam Painter, the instructor of the course for which these pieces were written, put it something like this: flash fiction is the perfect compliment for writing a novel; while novels require unending thought on one massive idea, micro fictions allow for the smaller, but no less important ideas to find their way into the world. I couldn’t agree more.
Writing these short stories has let me give voice to the random muses that bubble up all the time, those little dings in the back of your head that translate to “hmm, this might be something.” So while I’m always mulling over the gargantuan, multi-pronged exoplanet that is my book, writing flash is a way to capture those concepts that are more like comets, passing briefly and brilliantly through the night sky. I had a wonderful time putting this collection together as well, returning once again to the "mixtape" format that I've so enjoyed in the past (<a href="https://philome.la/PeterJamesBurke/premonition-ultra/index.html"; target="_blank">Here</a> and <a href="https://clamday.neocities.org/"; target="_blank">Here</a> for example) In the end, simply getting one’s writing into a visually pleasing and consumable form always generates that closure that authors dream of. That feeling of “someone might actually read this.” For my novel, that day is dauntingly far off, but at least for now I’ve got these stories.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Your Friend,
Peter James Burke
<a href="https://twitter.com/PeterJamesBurke?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor"; target="_blank">@PeterJamesBurke</a>
[[Table of Contents->ToC]] (align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''Table of Contents'']
[[Introduction->Intro]]
[[Archaeology]]
[[Drugs I Was On When I Broke Your Heart]]
[[In Memoriam]]
[[Gulf Shores Elegy; or the Pros and Cons of the American Collegiate Fraternity System]]
[[HUNTING SEASON]]
[[In Which The Earth is Saved by Small Sample Testing]]
[[Lottery Wheel]]
[[To Each, A Crusade]]
[[The Last Toll Collector]]
(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[''Praise for //I Should Be Working On My Novel//''
“Burke’s perfect words stalk like tigers through the lush jungles of his prose. A masterpiece of American Short Fiction.”
''— Lorrie Moore (probably)
''
“There is an energy of the mysterious and significant that lies beneath the surface of Burke’s stories. Pause with them. Look deeper.”
''— Thomas Pynchon (maybe)''
“Burke gives you humor where it is uncalled for, and a seriousness that feels nonchalant. Or maybe I’ve got that backwards. Either way, this collection deserves your time.”
''— Douglas Adams (not a chance)''
[[Introduction->Intro]] ](align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[
#(text-style:"smear")[I Should Be Working On My Novel]
//A Collection of Short Fictions//
Peter James Burke
[[Hit Play->Praise]]]
#[''Archaeology '']
A young boy makes a startling discovery. Like most young boys of a particular age, he dreams of finding a dinosaur in his backyard. The idea of something so marvelous and world-shattering being right under his nose the whole time. Except he has actually found one. Or so he thinks. Upon exhuming the bones, and showing them to his father, he is surprised to find his dad calling the police. “Put those down, son. Don’t get yer fingerprints on ‘em.” His pops says gruffly.
His pops is a gruff man. His pops is also an Iraq war vet who gets this blackhole look in his eyes when in situations he can’t shoot his way out of. Situations like crowded super markets or tense parent teacher conferences. He tells his son to go read the dinosaur book in his room. While he waits for the cops to arrive, he scratches a note to his wife on the back of a utility bill. A note saying why he did it. Why he killed her ex because of what he did to her, and why he’ll be going away for a while. He flips the envelope over and scribbles instructions for how to make his Famous Secret Special Pancakes (the trick is to fluff the egg whites).
The detective that ends up taking the father’s statement has a hard time sitting still. The war vet’s story about shooting his wife’s abusive former lover makes him think about his own daughter and her new boyfriend. It’s her first experience really dating (as far as she’s told him), and he can’t help but worry about not always being there to protect her and what he would do if this boy ever hurt her. Sure, he acted all tough — “You better have her back by nine-thirty, pal!”— when the boy came to pick her up last night, and he is a cop after all, but sometimes he thinks he’s been too protective of her. That he might make her want to act out more in order to spite him, and end up putting herself in a compromising position. It’s just that she’s been growing up so fast, ya know? So when he finishes up with this whole cold case business, he texts his daughter and asks if she needs a ride home from basketball practice, just to get the lowdown on the date and see if there is anything he needs to keep an eye on.
The daughter sees the text message and smiles, but doesn’t immediately respond because she is deep in a conversation with a teammate from the basketball team. Practice actually ended an hour ago, and she has gone with the small forward for gatorades in the meantime. The topic of her date comes up, and now the two girls sit on the curb outside the gas station talking about society’s expectations for love. The small forward is harping to the daughter about how everyone (movies, parents, the institution of marriage) always wants girls to find a guy to protect them, and how it is supposedly every young girl's dream to find Prince Charming. “Shouldn’t we just be focusing on finding someone who cares?” the passionate, and come to think of it, honestly really beautiful, teammate is saying. As the daughter listens to this, and compares it to the awkward nothing she felt last night, she realizes she may have found something after all.
[[Next Track->Drugs I Was On When I Broke Your Heart]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''Drugs I Was On When I Broke Your Heart''
Psilocybin mushrooms (we took these together at the reservoir, when you asked me if there was something on my mind, and I lied). Alcohol (at the bar crawl for your friend’s birthday, what was I supposed to do, not drink?). Weed (the joint we smoked at my buddy’s apartment, to even me out). Coke (he always has such good shit, I couldn’t pass up the line he offered — how was I supposed to know it would let the jumbled words in my mind spill out in the worst possible order?). Nicotine (the cigarette I took deep drags of after you left barefoot and in tears, trying to focus enough to think of a drug that would bring it all full circle). Caffeine (I stayed up all night, strung out, failing to write a letter that would put everything back in its place).
[[Next Track->In Memoriam]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''In Memoriam''
Two young men embrace in a dark apartment. One has just entered from a narrow hall, and still wears his faded boots and naugahyde jacket. The other is clad in flannel pants and a t-shirt, perched behind a cereal bowl. It is just after nine o’clock at night, and the faint tolls of the nearby church hang like ghosts in their ears.
The embrace ends as it started, in synchrony and silence, and the flannelled figure turns and clears his bowl from the table. He returns thumbing two tumblers, with his hand around the neck of some scotch like it’s a prize goose. His compatriot drapes his jacket on the back of a chair, nodding when the liquor is held up to him, in question.
Seated now, around the corner of a small table, in the corner of the room, they raise their glasses. Eyes meet over amber liquid, and then settle somewhere in the distance as they sip their drinks.
The latter entrant, Sully, speaks first. “I didn’t know where else to go, Leo.”
“Why do you think I come here?”
“Do they hate me for it?”
“Did you hate me? There’s only so much pain a person can take.”
“I know, but this isn’t easy either. I can’t get over how much is lost, all these parts of me.”
The young man in pajamas leans back, hands clasped behind his head. “That’s the scary part of loving a person, of going through life with them. You become only a part of the experience.”
“And you don’t find that a burden?” The visitor searches the bottom of his glass for an answer.
“What are we without each other?” At that, they sit in silence for a moment immeasurable.
The quiet is broken by the sound of revelers from somewhere outside. The voices grow and crescendo until there is the scrape of a key in a lock and a bubble bursts, laughter and shouts spilling into the vacuum of the apartment. The pair at the table watch from the sidelines as a party of young men in black suits kick off their shoes and turn on the lights. With arms around shoulders and ties pulled loose, the intruders make themselves comfortable. There is no objection from the seated two as the scotch in front of them is whisked away and glasses poured up for each of the newcomers.
Gathered in a standing huddle, the suited mass grows solemn and raises a toast.
“To Sully.”
A few voices perk up in dissent.
“Aye, to Leo, too. May they finally find the peace that evaded them.”
Murmurs of affirmation as the drinks are raised and then brought to lips.
At the table, Sully’s head drops. He grabs his coat and heads for the door. His companion rises to follow. The men milling about pay them no mind as they pick their way to the long hall. Removed from the ruckus, Sully turns with tears in his eyes. For the second time tonight, they hold each other in their arms.
Leo whispers in his ear.
“You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ll find it is a blesséd curse, to remember. A beautiful pain,”
Sully nods, stands up straighter.
“See you next year.”
[[Next Track->Gulf Shores Elegy; or the Pros and Cons of the American Collegiate Fraternity System]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''Gulf Shores Elegy; or the Pros and Cons of the American Collegiate Fraternity System''
The drive down was entirely uneventful. Yes, Bernard, the Beta Phi senior charged with driving me, informed us that his car, an ancient Saab, would require a jump every time you needed to turn it back on, but at the time that seemed like an endearing oddity. There was no hurry then, nowhere to be — our entire spring break was ahead of us. Gulf Shores, AL beckoned, and gleefully we followed the siren call of beers and beaches. The seven hour drive flew by in an instant.
Oh, how things change.
Five days later, and I find myself once again in the cracked leather backseat of the geriatric car, but this time, rather than a warm PBR in my lap, it is the pale head of the aforementioned Bernard Horwell the Third. Before you get excited, it's still attached to his body — but with a lack of life in his trust fund-baby-blues, it may as well not be. For all intents and purposes, it appears we have a case of acute alcohol poisoning and/or severe dehydration on our hands. Or in my case, in my lap.
❃
From his place at the wheel, Grayson Bayer twists to check on our fallen comrade. Of course, this movement causes him to jerk the car sharply towards the shoulder, which in turn elicits a low moan from Bernard.
“Shit! Sorry!” Grayson says. “Man, I can barely fucking drive this thing when I’ve got two hands!”
Grayson Bayer has a makeshift cast engulfing his left wrist and fist. Grayson is Bernard’s best friend, and a senior as well. Grayson Bayer is also a lefty, a fact which I know because Grayson broke his wrist and hand by punching Bernard in the face out on a sand dune last night. Something about a girl. I know this because I watched it happen, with the moon glimmering on the Gulf of Mexico behind them — while I sat smoking the second cigarette of my life on the porch of one of the rentals with a cute sophomore I’d met earlier that day.
❃
“I can’t get a signal! I don’t think there is a hospital anywhere!” Says the figure in the passenger seat. “Should I call my mom?” The speaker is the final member of our car: Siddhartha “Brown Mamba” Shekruda. Siddhartha is a freshman, like me, and is attending Belmont on a basketball scholarship. For this reason, Siddhartha is a little more stressed out than I am about returning to campus on time, as he has more skin in the game when it comes to the bio test we have tomorrow morning. For this reason I have also chosen not to tell him about the copious amounts of cocaine I watched Grayson stuff into the glove compartment as we were packing the car (“It’s crazy how much cheaper this stuff is down here than back at school!”). No need for me to stress the Brown Mamba out even more.
❃
While Grayson is explaining, surprisingly patiently, to Siddhartha why it would not be a good idea to call his mother, a faint gurgle escapes from the dead weight in my lap. With a wheeze, Bernard’s eyes flutter open and he beckons me closer. I’m already close enough to smell the alcohol vapors oozing out of his pores, but I humor him and lean in.
“...I like you, Slink,” he says, using the nickname that he’s coined for me in the past 72 hours.
“... but I feel like shit, man.” He gulps down what smells like bile before continuing. “There’s … there’s only one thing that can save me … take my mind off of this …”
“We’ll get you to a hospital, man,” I lie. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. “Just stay with me.”
“No, no, it’s too late for that… I need… I need… ass.”
Silence as I try to figure out what he’s trying to say to me. Long enough to hear Grayson say “Shit, we’re almost out of gas!” and long enough to hear a muffled sob come from the seat in front of me. Long enough for my thoughts to return to yesterday when I was walking down a perfect beach with that same cute sophomore, pleasantly buzzed, listening to the wind in the sawgrass and the lap of sapphire waves, and we’d just discovered that we both have grandmothers named Evelyn. But, here, in the present, Bernard is trying to get my attention again. He’s motioning to the floor of the car, where amongst beer cans and fast food wrappers I spy his phone. Carefully, I reach down and pick it up. Bernard takes it from me, gingerly. His shaking fingers open up his camera roll, flick past some tasteful shots of the Gulf, and find what he is looking for. It’s a bathroom selfie from his girlfriend. Tap, enlarge. He seems to have forgotten that I’m there, mere inches from his head, as he simply stares at the not-so-tasteful nude on his screen. A soft smile creeps onto his face, and a slight semblance of color returns. I watch him for a moment longer before turning my gaze out the window.
❃
Night is falling, uncaring on the Alabama countryside. Rotting mailboxes pass like mile markers before we finally sight a gas station. A Budweiser sign covered in kudzu looms above us as we pull up to the lone pump. Engine still running, Grayson hops out and makes a beeline to the mini-mart, mumbling something about cigarettes and pedialyte. I remember that we can’t turn the car off. On cue, Siddhartha wraps himself around his seat to look at me.
“Dude, do you think we’re gonna make it back?”
I meet his concerned eyes before dropping my own to look at the now-asleep Bernard.
“Yeah,” I say, “I think we’ll be ok.”
I’m surprised to find that I’m running my hands through his dirty blond hair, and probably have been for a while.
❃
[[Next Track->HUNTING SEASON]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''HUNTING SEASON''
A shot rings out in the autumn morning. Crows burst forth, indignant, from the harvest-heavy field. Nothing unusual. Hunting season. Fog and damp leaves conspire to smother the sound from memory.
Afternoon by the time the mist has cleared. Silent police lights wobble as the last squad car jostles its way back to the dirt road, leaving twin tracks in the chaff. Unusual. No sun in the wool sky.
Two figures are left standing by the cattlegate.
“I told him to stop wearing that stupid hat,” says the shorter one. “Told him it made him look like a damn moose.”
[[Next Track->In Which The Earth is Saved by Small Sample Testing]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''In Which The Earth is Saved by Small Sample Testing
''
Bright pinpricks for miles around. Tiny constellations burst from the border of sunrays and waves. The relentless equatorial sun beats down from empty skies. The undulating sea, a worthy opponent, gives no quarter in this timeless battle. The scene is silent save for the hysterical cries of seabirds.
Everything and nothing at all. Most would call it just another day in the South Pacific, here on Planet Earth.
Not for long.
The smell of ozone. A spaceship of indescribable topographical properties^^1^^ appears a few feet above the waves, vibrating slightly. It begins emitting a radio signal tuned to a frequency that mimics the homing instinct of this planet’s sentient life. All creatures with an ability to imprint location feel a primeval tug towards the craft, the feeling growing with proximity.
The first to arrive is a school of Pacific herring. The ship attempts to communicate. Using a two-way magnetic resonance beam, the ship stimulates and reads the brains of the fish in order to conduct a rehearsed interview. The attempt fails after only a few minutes, when the herring find themselves beset by a pugnacious pod of dolphins, making the panicked fish particularly unhelpful subjects.
The interview goes over more smoothly with the now-satiated dolphins. Full of herring filet and riding the high of a fruitful, and unusually easy, hunt, the young dolphins answer the ship’s questions with an adolescent confidence. Weaving playfully between the sea and sky beneath the spacecraft, they chat up the inquiring magnet-ray. After some perfunctory introductions, the interview goes something like this:
SPACESHIP: We have averaged out the surface characteristics of your planet, and this location represents a composite profile most similar to that mean. Would you agree that this is an accurate representation of your planet as a whole?
DOLPHINS: Ahh Yup. We’d say this is a pretty typical spot, mate. Know a few more secluded areas if you're looking for a good time, though — e e e e e e e eeee e e e e eeeeeeee^^2^^
S: Excellent. We are a certified interspatial agent of the Pan-Galactic Fulfillness Census. Would you say that the inhabitants of your planet are, on whole, //Fulfilled in Mind, Body, and Time?//
D: Oh I don’t know... Whattaya say, boys? Are we fulfilled? Yeah? Well, aside from Gary and his little scrod-dick here, yup, I think we're doing pret-ty well over ‘ere.
S: Excellent. Shall we take this as confirmation that you are declining a Comprehensive Fulfillness Audit? The audit is completely complementary, mind you, courtesy of the PGFC.
D: Naw, mate. Don’t think we’ll be needing one-a those. I think we’re goo—
Here, a plume of salty spray interrupts the gleeful circles of the dolphin pod. A dark shadow grows until it breaches the glittery surface. A massive sperm whale scatters the chirping delphinidae.
“Apologies for my tardiness,” the whale beams back to the spaceship, “I came as fast as I could when I got the call. Though I must say, I overheard the little guys, and I have to agree, we’re doing just fine here — no need for your services, friend.”
“Very well. We appreciate your participation and responses,” The PGFC agents says. “We wish you and your planet continued fulfillness in the future. Have a wonderful day.”
With that, the spaceship collapses back to its origin point, leaving nothing but a small vacuum in its wake. The faint pop hardly registers above the rolling waves, and soon the wind and seagull symphony returns as mundane soundtrack. The whale gives a little self-righteous puff, kicks its tail in the air, and plunges back to the depths to continue doing whatever it was doing before it received the extraterrestrial ring.
The sea and sun resume their sparring, and the Earth is saved from alien invasion^^3^^.
^^1^^ //But one must try: it is a shape as of yet undiscovered by human kind, it’s angles and molecular alignments allow for frictionless slippage through space-time — interestingly, the closest man would get to its unique form is the average tube of chapstick, a structure known to fall right out of pockets and purses and cross light years in any direction.//
^^2^^//Dolphin laughter//
^^3^^ //The PGFC would shortly thereafter fall victim to a massive data breach, surrendering their study’s findings, via quantum hackers, into the hands of a parasitic tribe of space viruses that would use said data to target and infest the emotionally vulnerable planets conveniently recorded in the data collected by the interspatial agents. Earth would not appear on the list of easily-abusable “Unfulfilled Planets” and thus escape invasion. For now. //
[[Next Track->Lottery Wheel]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''Lottery Wheel''
Outside my window the world plays on repeat: the woman who lives in her car sets up camp every night, faux-flowers tied to the tarp, a ritual I envy when the lights dim and another blurred day bleeds into the next with no blue plastic border — not that I don’t grieve her windswept februaries and only-souls-in-the-world screaming skirmishes with an unknown man who I wish would leave her alone if he’s just gonna treat her like this can’t he see that she’s too good for him and now that I think of it that’s probably why he needs to drag her down with him but I guess it takes one to know one, and now I got no one, so I listen deep into the witching hours ears straining down the hall out the window for any sign of trouble should she need me, though we’ve never met (her car always pulls in long after eight and I’ve never really seen when she leaves in the morning) and the car door closing is like the final click of the lottery wheel, on repeat, repeat, repeat, every night until one evening she just doesn’t show up.
[[Next Track->To Each, A Crusade]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''To Each, A Crusade''
They won’t hurt us because we’re kids. That’s what my mom said. She said most of the other kids in my class are gonna do it, too. That their parents told them the same thing. I wonder who isn’t gonna do it — there must be somebody, otherwise my mom would have said //all//. Probably Nia. She never hangs out with anybody outside of class, and she always wears this really fancy mask, and plays by herself at recess. Her parents don’t talk to the other parents, either. They pick her up in a shiny car from across the street.
//Why can’t you do it?// I asked this morning before heading to school. My parents did that thing where they look at each other like they’re saying something with their minds. //We can’t afford it, Bubbles. Mom says. We have to work, and what if they took me or your dad? We’d have to move again.// I wanted to ask if that meant they might take me, but Dad was already hugging my mom goodbye and rushing out to catch his ride.
Mom showed me where she packed the extra ham sandwich in my backpack and wished me good luck. She turned away really quickly once the school bus came around the corner, but I saw she was touching her eyes.
I could pick out our pastor as soon as we pulled up to school. He wasn’t wearing his usual costume, just a button shirt, but I could tell it was him from his greasy shiny haircut that looks like a sky jump. Kids were already starting to gather around him by the flagpole. It was still pretty dark out, and I could see everyone’s cloudy breath.
Instead of going into the building, like usual, I stood with the rest of my class next to our pastor. Just like our parents had told us.// Find him, and he will take you to the park where you’ll meet up with students from the other schools.// Apparently, even kids from the middle and high schools were gonna be there.
It didn’t feel that scary because we were all together. It was just weird not to be at our desks, kind of like a field trip. But we didn’t play, or joke, or anything, just stood there. That’s when I noticed the police people. Four of them, waiting in the parking lot, trying not to look at us. I felt embarrassed, but I wasn’t sure why — like if it was for me or for them. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. Our pastor was pointing at his face, and it took me a second to realize he was telling me to take my mask off.
Finally, the last bus arrived and kids got off and joined us. Our pastor said something that I didn’t hear, and then we started walking. All together, like one big class. I glanced back at the school before we left. A bunch of the teachers had come outside. Some were waving and giving us thumbs up, but a few looked sort of sad, turned around, shook their heads, or put a hand up to their face. And I noticed Nia. She was looking out of one of the long windows of the school. All by herself. I tried to imagine what she was thinking, but I got caught up in the crowd and soon I couldn’t see her anymore.
[[Next Track->The Last Toll Collector]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#''The Last Toll Collector''
The sun sets as Ida Winters eats a triangular turkey sandwich from its triangular plastic shell. Feet up on the dash of the Corolla she bought last fall instead of going to college, she watches a chevron of geese. Ten. No payment needed to fly over her tollbooth.
She needs to stop saying that. It was never really hers to begin with. Twenty-seven steps to the booth. Ida takes one more peek at the lavender sky before ducking in.
A car crescendos through the E-Z Pass lane. Ida doesn’t take it personally. She thinks instead about how only trucks stop at her window, lean down and say “huh, didn’t know they still take cash here” before pulling off. //Yup, they do,// Ida thinks to herself, //but not for much longer.// She watches the new fluorescent streetlight that flickers on for seventeen seconds, then off for four.
Ida idly fingers a roll of quarters as she watches for patterns. In the headlights. In the rumble strips. In the sunken eyes of the longhaul men and the tapping of mayflies on the glass. She watches because she knows they wouldn’tve had her stay out here for these last few weeks if there wasn’t a reason. A message.
[[The End]]
[[Back to Table of Contents->ToC]]
#Fin
Thanks for reading. I love u.
[[Table of Contents->ToC]]
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I Should Be Working On My Novel
A Collection of Short Fictions
Peter James Burke
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