Dredge

Here's a story you'll never forget, though it might give you recurring nightmares! Stay away from this one if you're sensitive:

Dredge
by Matt Bell

"The drowned girl drips everywhere, soaking the cheap cloth of the Ford’s back seat. Punter stares at her from the front of the car, first taking in her long blond hair, wrecked by the pond’s amphibian sheen, then her lips, blue where the lipstick’s been washed away, flaky red where it hasn’t. He looks into her glassy green eyes, both pupils so dilated the irises are just slivered halos, the right eye further polluted with burst blood vessels. She wears a lace-frilled gold tank top, a pair of acid-washed jeans with grass stains on the knees and ankles. A silver bracelet around her wrist throws off sparkles in the window-filtered moonlight, the same sparkle he had seen through the lake’s dark mirror, which had made him drop his fishing pole and wade out, then dive in after her. Her feet are bare except for a silver ring on her left pinkie toe, suggesting the absence of sandals, flip-flops. Suggesting something lost in a struggle. Suggesting many things to Punter, too many for him to process all at once."
read the rest at Hayden's Ferry

I got some good news last week - my short story Dirty Girl has been selected for an upcoming anthology by Press 53. The anthology, called What Doesn't Kill You . . . will feature stories about struggle. It's edited by Murray Dunlap and Kevin Watson and due out in June. It's sure to be a wonderful collection!

A Shot of Whatever

I'm obsessed with working on my novel right now, so I've fallen a little behind in my reading. Luckily, I received a link to this great flash by David LaBounty, now up at Smokelong Quarterly:

"Stella was the first to arrive and she kissed me on the lips as I walked through the tavern door. I think the kiss was supposed to be passionate, intense; cinematic even.

It wasn't quite that."
read the rest at Smokelong Quarterly

David LaBounty is the author of Affluenza, a novel I reviewed on this blog last year.