Stories tagged “Adam Susskind”

  • Somewhere Else In Town

    My brother watches me from across the armrest with his signature smile, ears raised, looking like an ass. Last night, he told me that this girl was the one. I look on into the restaurant from the front seat of the Taurus that I bought last year for too...

  • It Feels Like Forever

    The tape runs out again, like it always does, the little red light on the cassette player staring me down. I turn it off after a sigh, listening to the subtle hissing die away into silence. I pull out the old cassette with a little more aggression than...

  • Wite-Out

    I’m standing in aisle four in a Staples in Suburbia, Virginia, trying to figure out why I’m going back to school for a fifth year, and leaving my girlfriend behind. It’s September again. September. I can’t stop seeing that name ...

  • Hardly Exotic

    It was uncomfortable watching her dance, that sleazy smile plastered over her face hiding the fear and shame in her eyes. You could watch for hours and never see her shiver. I sat and stared at my glass, the light from the wine leaving a pale yellow sh...

  • The Relative Blackness pt.1

    The filter on the big rubber suit doesn’t keep out the stench. Dim light, dark green and brown on the walls. The mask blocks my peripheral, and I turn clumsily to look over at Evan who is standing under one of the few functioning lights in the hall, ...

  • The Relative Blackness pt.2

    Part 1: http://ficly.com/stories/15861 Part 2: http://ficly.com/stories/15863 Sorry, I accidentally first posted this as a lone story, and couldn’t delete this since it had a comment already.

  • The Relative Blackness pt.2

    Evan is still looking at his pencil, lodged tip first into a dried spot of grime, when I pull on his arm and tug him with me down the old tiled floor. He comes uneasily, staring back until we’ve gone twenty or thirty feet. If I let go, he’l...

  • The Relative Blackness pt.3

    The flashlight on my shoulder is starting to go. I hold my deafening breath, but the slamming in my chest takes its place. I’m pressed up against the wall, listening to the muted sounds outside my suit. There’s nothing, I think. Probably no...

  • The Goodbye Protocol

    Something within me has activated my Goodbye Protocol. Maybe it’s because I know that it’s over. There’s a woman here on the Moon. She may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Cold solar wind blows so gently across me, I wonder if itR...

  • While It Lasts

    She cries and cries, little thing perched up on the bench while the doctor gives her the shot. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. She screams like someone is cutting her arm off. The pediatrician holds her gently to keep her from f...

  • On the Moon

    I drove past the house that morning, looking for Abigail. She was gone. She told me she was going to wait for me, that I wasn’t going to be alone through all this. I guess I fell for that. Still, I stood on the porch for an hour or so, hoping that sh...

  • The Box Cart on Suicide Hill

    The discarded soap box in the back of the alley wasn’t big enough to fit any of us, and the bottom looked pretty rotted out, but we all knew that it had been sitting there long enough, and it was time to put it to good use. We scoured the neighbo...

  • Candy Bars and Silence

    They decided that rather than fighting they would just split the food evenly. It was Christmas Eve and something in the Department store’s mainframe had fried itself without warning cutting power to the building and locking all the doors. At firs...

  • My Halogen Dream

    My eyes still shrink-wrapped in sleep, I grip the headboard and pull myself up and back a bit to get the blood flowing. The blanket hits the floor and I stumble past the beautiful woman in my bed. She has fixed me up almost to the point where that old ...

  • Volunteer Twenty-Eight is Dead

    She grabbed her pen and held it to the paper threateningly, waiting for the right words. “A minute of failure for every ten of success and it still feels like we aren’t making any headway.” The sign on the wall above the desk at the o...

  • Career Change In Our New Kitchen

    My glass of water was on the edge of the counter. If she put that hot pan down in the wrong place, or I didn’t watch as I leaned forward, it was going to plummet to the ground. I picked it up and took a drink. The mushrooms in the skillet sizzled...

  • What Happens After Hours

    He adjusted his tie, stepping out of the elevator, sliding past Mary. His cubicle was the one farthest on the left and he knew that someone would have thrown his or her granola bar wrapper onto his seat again. Worse could happen. He’d heard of people...

  • How to Melt Eight Feet of Snow

    The snow outside was the heaviest I’d seen in a long while. It was still coming down when I’d finally cleared the driveway for the second time, and I was getting worried. I didn’t really have the steam to keep going out there and plowing away. Fo...

  • Ignite

    There is an elephant in the room. One of the gaskets has burst and fuel has been leaking out for days, filling the shell of the ship like a balloon of gaseous napalm floating around in low pressure. Two days ago we coasted past the red planet helplessl...

  • American Summer

    Inside the house with the AC blasting and the neighborhood kids calling to each other from outside, though the screens on the windows, I felt it. A Summer weekend, like a dream. A season of endless bliss that the kids anticipate during the days from Se...

  • Old Sneakers

    I had a hundred good reasons not to send so much as a card this past Valentine’s Day, but I did because I wasn’t sure if I’d be around for the next one, and I knew that Lisa was depressed and could use a pick-me-up. So far, so good. I’m not sic...

  • The Next Generation Will Be Better (Part One)

    Janet plays with her toys on the carpet in the living room. There’s another girl here to play. One of Janet’s few friends. So many of her friends seem to outgrow her after a year or two. She’s young. Maybe things will change, I don’t know. I ha...

  • The Next Generation Will Be Better (Part Two)

    Janet scampers over, leaving the other girl to sit by the couch staring dully towards where Janet escaped her vision around the corner. She doesn’t look at me. Kids. I hear Nicole crying and I leave the other child to go stand by the door to the dar...

  • The Next Generation Will Be Better (Part Three)

    I hear Nicole whimper. I nod and sigh. The man smiles and taps me on the shoulder. “It’ll be alright. Everyone gets over these models eventually. The next generation will be better.” I stare at his mouth. I wish it was easier to tell if this guy ...

  • The Next Generation Will Be Better (Part Four)

    “Do you want to say goodbye, Janet?” She nods. There’s a pause, and then she looks up at me, faces me slowly, and wraps her thin arms around my right calf. When she turns back to Marcus, the small serial number tattooed into the side of his neck ...