Brian Kenneth Swain

As so often happens in good stories, let us start at the beginning. Later, if all goes well, we will conclude with the ending, although that outcome, as you will grow to understand, is far from certain. Indeed, there is much ground to plough in the journey between here and there. Most of the action will take place in what traditionalists would label the story’s middle. I, employing perhaps a bit more hubris than is appropriate for such a serious affair, prefer instead to regard this central bit as the plot, or if you like, the storyline. In any event, to enhance the pedagogical value of this poignant vignette, I shall periodically endeavor to expound upon key points as they occur. The beginning in this case is a Thursday evening, let us ...

“Donovan,” she said, half pleading, half insisting, but looking me straight and hard in the eye the whole time, “we simply have to do it, and to hell with the laws. They’re ridiculous and anachronistic anyway.” I had only been in the door two minutes, surprised to find she had beaten me home from work today. Normally the city records office closed at five, and she would be back in the apartment by quarter to six, more often than not one to two hours before I’d get there. Catherine spent her days issuing and tracking government identification cards, processing property tax payments, and managing a myriad of other bureaucratic processes that usually had her pretty strung out by the time she got home. At least a couple of nights a ...

Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past. James Joyce – Ulysses OH HELL, I say, remembering too late how much I hate days that begin with a curse. I am awake…ripped awake at three thirty two in the a.m. by a blistering crack of thunder and a tumultuous rain attacking my roof and walls. I know it’s three thirty two because the moment the thunder strikes, I burst panting from my dreamsleep and look over to the clock radio, which clearly says three thirty two. Two hours or so later I am calmer, albeit still awake, and in a disconcertingly transcendental turn of events, my clock radio still says PRECISELY-THREE-THIRTY-TWO… …which wouldn’t be quite so disturbing if it were one of those older ...

Tonight’s top story – after a month-long manhunt covering five southwestern states, alleged serial killer Shane Boswell was taken into custody early this morning at a convenience store outside Abilene, Texas. He gave himself up peacefully to two Texas State Police officers, and is now awaiting arraignment in San Antonio district court. Boswell is expected to be tried on at least nine separate counts of capital murder – cases extending from last December in Santa Fe to as recently as this month in Odessa. He is expected to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, and the San Antonio district attorney has ordered a preliminary psychiatric examination in hopes of countering this strategy. *         *          * “Shane, ...

My name’s Josh Faulkner and I’m sittin’ here in a hard oak chair at Huntsville prison, waitin’ on my pa to come and pick me up. This chair they set me in to wait is pretty unusual, now that I get to lookin’ at it good. In fact, I ain’t never seen one quite like it. My Uncle John used to build chairs once in a while, but they was always thin and light, and the wood was golden and smooth as a baby’s backside. My mom used to love them chairs too – even had some of ‘em in our kitchen a long time ago. But this one here ain’t nothin’ like what my Uncle John used to make. This one’s real big and heavy and rough. It sure ain’t made for sittin’ comfortable’s what I mean – not a place I’d care to spend a long time ...

The day after it happened, I awaken to find the bedroom window slightly ajar, the narrow gap admitting, like jelly oozing from the far edge of a child’s sandwich, the distant melancholy croak of a morning jay. And through the wavering glass panes, to whose dust and grime I have already grown accustomed, there struggle beams of sunlight, not in that abundant all enlightening fashion that embraces morning people, but rather in individual streams, each gasping to find its own path through the relentlessly advancing opacity of decades, and each bearing with it a cargo of motes and other weightless impurities that dance and swirl with grace belying the utter lack of circulation in the room. Slowly, like burglars, a select few of these rays ...

I’m telling you if he fires up that goddamn French horn one more time so help me I am going to personally walk over there and stuff it up his ass. We’ll see what kind of noises he can make on it then, by God. Couldn’t be any worse. Now Red, what other way could you do something like that that besides personally? Don’t you give me none of your uppity lip. Save it for those second graders of yours. You know damned good and well what I mean. It wouldn’t be so bad if the kid had a lick of ability on the thing but Jesus H. Christ, what’s it been—three years—since Peterson bought him that thing and hell if it don’t still sound like a cat being fed through a wood chipper every time he touches it. Shit, give the boy a job as some ...

Turns out the global warming crowd was right, but for entirely the wrong reason. Truth of the matter is it never had anything to do with carbon dioxide or greenhouse effects or any of that crap. It was just the engine coming on-line. All I remember is one minute I was sitting there on the couch, snarfin’ a bag of Doritos and watching the game on ESPN. Next thing I know, one of those Breaking News things comes marching across my screen just as Bagwell is about to come up to bat with the bases loaded and only one out. This had better be damned good, I’m thinking, but I honestly expected it to be just another plane crash, or civil war in Botswana, or some other crisis about which I could care diddly-shit. Well, for a change they came up ...

I’m Bud, and I live in Endicott Village, which is this no-account little town up in northern Vermont where not one goddamn thing ever happens. Years ago they’d have called it a one-horse town, except we ain’t got no horses I ever saw. Truth is, I been meaning to get my skinny ass (ma’s words) out of this place for ages. Only it ain’t that simple, on account of Mirabelle. She’s this girl who used to live a little ways down the road from us when we were growing up. I guess you could say we really spent a lot of time hanging out together back in them days. Now we only manage to get together once in a while, but I really like talking to her whenever I can. I still drop in on her mom once in a while too, seeing as how she pretty ...

Hanan had already arrived. As Avi walked through the front door into the restaurant, he glanced about uneasily, eventually locating the man he had agreed to see. The two had never met before this evening, and they were, even now, separated by more than thirty feet. Still, Avi had no doubt this was the man. Hanan was sitting alone in a booth in the dim light of the back corner, motionless, staring straight ahead into the empty seat across from him. Avi remained for a moment just inside the door, nervously wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead as he surveyed the newly rebuilt establishment. Warm oak wainscoting surrounded the roomful of matching tables and arch-back chairs. A half-dozen ceiling fans swung slowly and silently overhead, ...