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Short Stories




Cold-Eyed Triage Nurses In High-Heeled Boots by Angel Obregon Forced into a Lesbian encounter in the fitting room. [Rated R] [2,527 words]
The Way To Bet by Angel Obregon The horrible result of reading a book called The Pleasures of Probability by Richard Isaac. [1,035 words]
...And Everything Goes Black by Darcy K Metz A nightmarish story about a young man, two taxi drivers, and one unforgettable wom... [2,517 words]
The Winds Of Change by Darcy K Metz This is the first short story I wrote based on characters in a novel I tried writing when I... [7,246 words]
The Trouble With Carla by Darcy K Metz This story follows a previous one, "The Winds of Change." This story is more of a horror... [4,905 words]
A Jennifer Love-Affair by Darcy K Metz A completely false story of a treeplanter from Vancouver who meets and falls in love wit... [3,869 words]
The Wicked Witch Of Creative Writing by Gary Donnelly Non-fiction/fiction. [1,418 words]
Dark Rebirth by Kerry L. Schofield Dark Rebirth is the story of a man named Senwick, who inherits on the death of his mysterious aged... [7,117 words]
Satan Smiled by Albert Davis - [3,737 words]
The Fourth Floor Landing by J. Michael Kearney A young firefighter recounts how a pompous Captain finally got his wish. [6,364 words]
Forever And Always by Virginia A. Sheppard A young woman is tormented by a decision she must make. Her four year old daughter lies help... [1,567 words]
Spring Break by Arlene Mason Another adventure for Keith Richardson, Private Investigator. This time his vacation is interupte... [4,784 words]
Hidden Reality by Lisamarie Jones Christina's lunch-break is not quite as it seems. [736 words]
Autumn Wind by Dorothy Getchell About an old man who must learn to deal with his wife's death. A very sad but moving story, if I m... [1,461 words]
Art Lovers by M J Martino A Guardian Angel's simple manipulation of fate allows two soulmates to meet for the very first, and ... [2,481 words]
There Be Dragons by Scott Jones A young couple on an afternoon jaunt get more than they bargained for. [1,809 words]
The Empty Bay by Alex Empire [461 words]
On The Other Side by Lisamarie Jones This is a story about a young girl who is tired of being pushed around. She takes matters int... [1,134 words]
The Witness by Thomas J Misuraca A Kafka-esque story in which a man finds himself and his loved ones in danger if he reveals informa... [2,244 words]
The Perfect Kiss by A Shockley A teenager wonders about the word "Love." She begins to believe that what she has heard about... [1,959 words]
The Running Man by Eric Allen Written for freshman English class, to explore the concept, meaning, and definition of heroism.... [1,091 words]
Come Back, Mr. Mojo Risin' by Noel Dolan Kennedy James lost her beloved brother in the Vietnam War. A year later she sees leg... [4,245 words]
God's Messenger by Tom Di Roma About the influence an elderly gentleman has on the patrons of the diner where he has been froz... [5,970 words]
The Good Gun by Russ Bauer A lone women prepares to leave a city falling into chaos. She also has to protect herself from som... [1,564 words]
A Day In Dell by Barbara Villarreal Old west setting... good vs evil. [1,969 words]
My Boy's Best Friend by Melissa Allen About a girl who can't stand her boyfriend's bestfriend and then one day she finds out she... [4,020 words]
Music To My Ear by Melissa Allen About a girl who cannot stand a guy and then she has to sing with him in her band and realizes ...
It's A Wonderful Life by Jennifer M Haynes The story of a man surviving (and wishing he hadn't) a nuclear war. What happened before ... [1,950 words]
The Jigsaw Puzzle by Jennifer M Haynes A teenager tries to free himself from the sickenly perfect town he lives in, to make it into ... [1,084 words]
A Teen's Diary Entry by Rachel Elaine Reeves A teenager writes a diary entry after driving drunk and killing four people. Her chilling... [295 words]
Sticks by Charmaine L. Glass With the help of an overweight classmate, an underweight girl finds her hidden courage to overcome teasi... [877 words]
Always With You, A Collection by Toni Jaquay Lynch Always With You - It's a story of undying love. [514 words] I Will Feel It - It's... [149 words]
The Big Bang by Darcy K Metz A short short about a man who meets himself. [196 words]
Escape To Samsun by J A Melody A tale of three comrades, chartering their epic path to freedom, and to escape the horror that... [2,450 words]
Haul Out The Holly by Jennifer L O'callaghan This is a holiday story I wrote for a writing class, inspired by what my sisters and I call... [2,087 words]
Warriors' Mired Blades by Daniel A. Souers A true medieval and inspiring masterpiece that brings the reader within the mind of a gr... [1,799 words]
Fake Reality by Erin D. Traynum Covers the thoughts and influences of a gold digger at the moment when she commits suicide. [1,034 words]
Through The Window by Erin D. Traynum This story is about a nine year old girl who is being sexually abused. [1,211 words]
Florence by G�rard Ducasse A rather banal love story. [762 words]
Deposit Three Billion Dollars For The Next Two Minutes by Angel Obregon This is the horrible result of watching 3 X-FILES re-run... [2,931 words]
Quarter Of A Century by Drexler McStyles This short story is an obscene tale of insanity and excessive drug use set in Las Vegas. [4,084 words, Rated R]
Destroy The Link by Jennifer M Haynes Story of a girl who comes home from school to find things are wrong, and then realizes that sh... [3,333 words]
Packed With Peanuts by Jennifer L O'callaghan This is a flash fiction piece I wrote for a writing class about an attempted late night sna... [731 words]
Bovinza by Duane A Wood/Caveman A 12 year old boy has a peculiar, reoccuring dream about, of all things, a cow. To discover its meaning... [898 words]
Shear Trouble by Addison Gast A short story. [514 words]
Blues In The Closet by Victoria King Angel Obregon submitted this for Victoria King who is operating without the Net in mor... [3,998 words]
Checkout Time by Louise Friedman It's a tale of too young, self destructive, certifiable girl who married a slug and allowed him t... [1,664 words]
A Quarrel In The Forest by Darcy K Metz An argument between a cedar tree and a stone resolves itself after much time. [161 words]
Remember The Bubbles by Dana Drew The story of an elderly man rekindling his youth with the help of a playful child. [623 words]
The Mistake by Kavan Tate drama of a boy's decision gone wrong [504 words]
Mike and Sadie Mae by Judith Z Marrs Short story. [4,038 words]
A Work of Art by Roy L Pickering Jr The tale of man who feels trapped in the merely serviceable existence he believes he has settled ... [3,944 words]
Elizabeth by Christine Dorothea-Maris A short mystery story about a widow, taken in by her late family's husband in the late 1890's, who ha... [255 words]
Home by Matt Matics This short story (or possible beginning to a longer piece) is ostensibly "about" a boy returning home from... [3,299 words]
Cold Wind by David H. Paniagua The short story of three soldiers who've deserted the battlefield of WWI, only to discover they've be... [1,345 words]
The Fortune Teller by Michael J McGrath A group of friends encounter a mysterious fortune teller who changes lives. [975 words]
Transition by Oliver Thomas Coles Brackenbury A man trapped between two great fears of the unknown, one which he has left behind and one which mus... [916 words]
Yasha Tafipolsky by S Lichtenstein A story of the Russian Revolution, its effect on the people, and the struggles of the Tafipols... [8,644 words]
Twenties by Larry D. Griffin Flash Fiction [668 words]
Tiki's Revenge by Edward L Wier A short-story of a lesser god's dwindling popularity in the spirit world. The Christians and t... [8,078 words]
Outlaws by M H Doty It is a irreverent piece about falling in lust in a beautiful tropical town with an outlaw-type guy! [2,500 words]
The Cake in His Pocket by M Betette A dark comedy about a very disfunctional and very happy family. [850 words]
Blue Dog Days by W Delaney This short story is about an ex-politician turned political writer named John Gerrick. The story ... [2,000 words]
The Doona Drag, A Collection by S Lichtenstein The Doona Drag - A humorous look at the plight of modern middle-aged man, coping w... [650 words]
The Girl in the Ocean by Edward D Adams Two women are dead and only one man cares about finding out who did it. In catching the ... [4,300 words, Mystery]
(Un)Faithful by P D Woo How do you forgive someone you love? What if you'd betrayed them before and they'd forgiven you? W... [1,050 words]
Leaving by Murray Evans Leaving home for not just a new country, but a new world. [4,050 words]
The Perfect Joke by J A Young A dark and funny slice of life detailing a boy's search for perfection. [1,800 word]
Bazaar by W I B R Smith This story was inspired (very) loosely by an incident which happened to me in college, back in 1991, whe... [5,500 words]
Age Before Beauty by Mary Ann Savage Women get bored and restless in some of these apartment complexes. Even old ladies. Let the g... [1,900 words]
Weeds
Adult Bookstore by Sal Morano Experiencing frustration and stress, a reformed porno junkie comes face to face with the urge t... [4,500 words]
The Magic Ball
The Beast
Pfarfenagle
The Sheriff
The Alien
Vampires
Jealousy
Corrine and Victoria
Destiny
The Death Reader
Early One Morning
Lost Four Words
Lavender Moon
Sweet Angela
Iridescent Imagery
Christmas Shopping
It's Been There...
Burnt Out
Stolen
Tinfoil Memories
A Pang of Pity
The Way It Ends
Miss America
Don't Ask
Obsession
Tales from the Altar
Waves
In the Cards
Billy
Looking At Me
The Gift
Suspension of Disbelief
Bingo Blood
The Belief
Aunt Rose's Revenge
Lytle Creek Trek
Utter Untruths
Protect and Serve
The Figure
The Last Tenant
Into the Knight
Salugi at Starbucks
The Parent Hunt
The Last Laugh
Mother's Day
The Cop
The Red Eagle
The Grand Old Party
Lacy and the Bear
Locusts
Unconfessed Sins
Rules of Civil Procedure
Do Unto Others
A Stranger Dressed Black
Strike Force - The Reckoning
The Doorway
Coping
Sniper Hunt, A Collection
The Slayer
Some days you're the pigeon...

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TITLE (EDIT)
Weeds
DESCRIPTION
This is not really about flowers, not really about love.
[1,350 words]
AUTHOR
Mary Ann Savage
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am a California based writer. I'm interested in the internal processes of people and tend to write about the internal more than the external person. I live a quiet life in a farming community.
[September 1999]
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (2)
Age Before Beauty (Short Stories) Women get bored and restless in some of these apartment complexes. Even old ladies. Let the gardener beware. [1,900 words]
Myth Cycle, A Collection (Poetry) Bellerophon, who rode the winged horse, Aeon, about Pan, waiting, and He Hunted Diana, the goddess speaks to the doomed man.
Weeds
Mary Ann Savage

I failed as a mother; my kids never come visit, even forget to call. I guess it follows I'm a bad gardener -- I can't even nurture a plant.

The things that grow in my yard are the jungle dandelions. I swear I have one that's four and a half feet tall, as tall as a teen-age child. It never flowers, just puts out brownish purple, jagged leaves going down to an immense root that must touch the center of the earth. Somehow it goes directly to seed, even though it seems to be immortal, and every year, its descendants appear, growing up everywhere.

It thrives with only a little accidental nurture, a little water from the rinsing of the sidewalk, and I don't even give it a kind word.

Each spring I hire Manny to hack down the jungle in my yard and make the house presentable. I tell him how much I will pay him and he works until we agree he's earned it -- always less than I want done, more than he'd like to do. This has been going on for seven years now, since he was sixteen, and living in Mrs. Arbuti's house as a foster child. He doesn't live there now, of course, doesn't visit her that I know of, never mentions her to me.

I might have been the one who got Mrs. Arbuti retired from foster care, but no one knows about the anonymous phone call I made to Social Services. She may suspect, but she doesn't know.

I used to hire the kids from her house -- she usually had two or three -- to do chores. Hell, I made up things for them to do. Her kids had to earn their own spending money, and they beseiged me for odd jobs. Manny was the most persistent; I let him mow my scraggly lawn with my old hand mower.

After awhile, he was at my house all the time. I finally told him I couldn't afford him, he's better go somewhere else, and I lent him mower to use on other people's property. But he still kept coming, and when I told him for the second time I couldn't afford him, he said he didn't mind doing a few things for free. "Your yard needs a lot of work," he said.

Well, tell me the sky is blue.

But I noticed that he didnt't want to go home. When a teen-ager would rather pull weeds than go in for dinner -- you start to wonder.

Each March he shows up at my place, and I give him some soda -- Diet Dr. Pepper, and last year it was the sixth of a six pack I bought two years ago, I hate the stuff -- and he tells me about his winter, and waits for me to say "Well, Emmanuel, are you going to help me fix up this old place again?"

One time when I ran into Mrs. Arbuti at the Safeway store, I asked her how was Manny doing, and she had to think before she even remembered who I was talking about. She wasn't sure, she said, she thought he was working with animals at some vet's, he always liked animals, but she really didn't know.

I didn't tell her I see him every spring. She could see him herself working in my yard, if she showed any interest beyond her own front door. But it made me think to ask him about her, and he remembered her all right, without much affection, I could tell. He didn't say much though. He pursed his lips up and "I never see her," he said. "Is she still taking kids?"

And I said, "I think she retired. There's no more loud music coming from that house, anyhow."

He grunted, and shoved the orange outside extension cord through the window. I went in and plugged it into the outlet, and Manny proceeded to whack down the errant green stuff all around the yard.

He doesn't do a very good job, but then I don't pay him very much either. There are always a few of that big dandelion's descendants still standing, and I always have to tell him to mind the details and get it all.

Last year, he looked pretty seedy when he came around. His only coat was his long sleeved denim shirt, as far as I could see. His shoes were old. When he took his shirt off in the sun, the Tee Shirt he had on was grungy, that was the only word for it.

Then I noticed he didn't have the Walkman he always had before. I asked about that; he said someone stole it.

So I scrounged around to find some old clothes of Bill's. That was hard, too, though I made it out I still had a lot of stuff lying around, and I went outside and told him he was grungy, and I didn't want a grunge working in my yard, someone would think I hired tramps, and then I'd get robbed and murdered in my bed, no thank you, and he'd better come in and take a shower and wear these things while I washed his stuff.

So he did, and I gave him dinner that night, and as he left I said, "Go on, take the flannel shirt if you want it."

I figured I'd seen the end of him for another year, but Monday next he showed up again with a little six-pack of orange daisies from Orchard Supply, black-eyed Susans, he told me, and said he was going to plant them around my walk, and all it would take to keep them pretty would be a little water once in awhile. "It's a shame," he said severely, "how you always let your yard go brown every summer."

"I know," I said, "and I try, I have a hose and everything. But then I forget and then it's always too late."

"Well, don't forget these," he said.

I didn't, and they grew all summer. The leftover water put the giant dandelion up over my head, the only thing in the yard alive, besides those orange flowers.

Then it was winter, and everything started turning green and wild again. Darned if those black-eyed Susans didn't reseed themselves again, came up and started to bloom. I bought another six-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper, towards the end of March, but Manny was never this late before.

So, the day after Easter, I marched up to Mrs. Arbuti's and asked her straight out if she's heard from him, because he usually works my yard in the spring.

She didn't ask me in, just looked at me through the screen door, and sniffed. "I didn't know you ever had anyone work on that yard of yours."

I didn't say anything, and she added, "Well, that's what Manny's work looks like -- like no one did anything."

"Well," I said, matching her friendliness, "Do you know where he is, or not?"

"I don't keep in touch with every kid who passed through here. But I heard was living at the Rescue Mission for awhile. He can never keep a job very long." She sounded disgusted.

"The mission." I tried to sound neutral.

"Then I heard he was in jail around New Year, at the county facility." She pronounced it carefully, "Fa-ci-li-ty."

"Did you hear why?"

"Heard it was a bar fight. But I don't know, haven't seen Emmanuel since he turned eighteen. Trashy kid." And she moved to shut the door; she was finished talking to me.

It's the end of April, and I haven't hired anyone to work on the yard this year. I took out the hoe and whacked the top off my old enemy dandelion myself, but I'm just going to let the yard get brown and die out by itself. I'll get Mr. Bradley's boy to run over it with the tractor mower before it's a fire hazard, if Manny still hasn't come by summer.

I still water those little flowers, though. If Manny ever comes back, he's going to see little orange daisies in my yard, even if I have to go to Orchard and buy another six pack.

 

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"A beautiful, sad piece that is even a bit funny in parts. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The characters seemed so real, like people you might meet in almost any neighborhood." -- Sal Morano, Corona, California, USA

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 1998 Mary Ann Savage
STORYMANIA PUBLICATION DATE
September 1999
NUMBER OF TIMES TITLE VIEWED
2072
 

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