Cynthia Hawkins

When he first handed me the cleaned-out coffee can with all of my pieces inside I bit down on one like a prospector testing gold. The feel of Scrabble tiles without the letters, the heft of bone, each one a variant shade of beige. My tongue assessed the fine grit of something vaguely tasting of shoe sole.

“Don’t eat it!” Jim said.

“I’m not eating it.” It left the tang of worn leather on my lips, and then I set the square back down.

Read the rest of my new and strange little tale at the Used Furniture Review right here.

A little something new from a longer work in progress, now at Fictionaut:

Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky.  Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.  I crossed my hands over my chest, feeling my voice buzz there when I said, “That one’s important.”  I jutted a chin toward the pink hula hoop, bright pink with stripes, the one suspended furthest out on the limbs.  One pink, one metallic green, one the color of a penny with silver glints.  

“Why’s that one important?” Rachel asked, a dismissive chortling in her throat at the end of it.  Her head shifted in the grass, her pale gaze angling for me.  She made a longer line in the grass than I did.  Her arms could spread out wider.  Her fingernails scratched at the dried ground along the roots.  “Why’s that one so important?”

“Because.  That’s the last one you go through before you’re on another planet.”  We thought if we stared hard enough, we could launch ourselves through the hoops and end up somewhere else.  But it had to be through one and then the next.  I’d explained this already, but Rachel was digging at the ground and staring me down instead of the hoops.  Read more here.

When Jim first handed me the cleaned-out coffee can with all of my pieces inside I bit down on one like a prospector testing gold.  The feel of Scrabble tiles without the letters, the heft of bone, each one a variant shade of beige.   My tongue assessed the fine grit of something vaguely tasting of shoe sole.

“Don’t eat it!” Jim said.

“I’m not eating it.”  It left a tinge of worn leather on my lips, and then I set the square back down.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“I’m not eating it.  I’m not doing anything.”  Just like I hadn’t been nudging my fingernail into a piece of stale gum, right at that very moment, stuck under the tabletop and relishing the way the gum softened its resistance.  Which I had been.  “So.  What is it?”

Read on at Fictionaut.

Garage-sale variety olive-green corduroy, elbow patches, hems too short. His jacket pocket produced answers one afternoon like strips of paper from cracked fortune cookies. The pocket on the right, to be exact. It had been an ordinary jacket, but then as he stood on the corner of Huisache and Market Streets, angled toward the vast parking lot and pausing to pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, he was thinking,what the hell have I done? And the second he jammed his hands into his jacket pockets the right one answered with a small paper ribbon lapping at his knuckles. He thumbed it free. Unfolded it. You have made an ass of yourself, it read in the small, even print of capital letters. At first, he’d thought announcing a weight-loss competition for the women of his office had been a good idea. Now his pocket confirmed what the sick sprawl in his ribs and Annette Demarcolo’s middle finger had told him already. It was not.

Read the rest of “Deep Pockets” at Fictionaut.

Just out in Our Stories Literary Journal, my short story “Hope Before 3:15,” available online for now and to be included in their “best of” print anthology at the end of the year. Enjoy!

Hope Before 3:15