Friday Night Stories
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panda-like calm through fiction
Fiction
New stories are being posted at the blog. This page will remain as an archive of 5 years of weekly short stories.
Title Description
Contamination 03/18/11
Inside 03/11/11
Conflict Resolution 03/04/11
Caulerpa 02/25/11
Crier 02/18/11
Nexus 02/11/11
D.Ag: Epilogue 02/04/11
Torches and Pitchforks 01/28/11
Dark Waters 01/21/11
Valley Forge 01/14/11
Coxtopus 01/07/11
Preggers 12/31/10
Little Green Army Man 12/24/10
Good Behavior 12/17/10
Wrathful Grapes 12/10/10
Purple Mountains' Majesty 12/03/10
Fox in the Henhouse 11/26/10
All That's Golden 11/19/10
Green Thumb 11/12/10
False Flag 11/05/10
Werehouse 10/29/10
The Ghost Club 10/22/10
Murder on Holiday 10/15/10
Bull Moose 10/08/10
Space Beer 10/01/10
Indian Gift 09/24/10
Black Widows Ball 09/17/10
Save As 09/10/10
Bastard Universe 09/03/10
Laborious Love 08/27/10
Crying Games 08/20/10
Uncanny Valley 08/13/10
Hypotenuse 08/06/10
Turing's Test 07/30/10
Why There Are No More Dragons Or Unicorns 07/23/10
We 07/16/10
Things That Twitch 07/09/10
Hang Around 07/02/10
Cast 06/25/10
Cry Wolf 06/18/10
Analog 06/11/10
Only NuMan 06/04/10
Prisoners of War 05/28/10
The Slab 05/21/10
Suicide Spear 05/14/10
Atlas Dug Up 05/07/10
Quarter 04/30/10
Someone Else's Problem 04/23/10
Mine 04/16/10
Raider 04/09/10
Chexting 04/0/10
Real American Dreams 03/26/10
Leaving Lost Atlantis 03/19/10
Blood Falls 03/12/10
Font of Youth 03/05/10
Falstaff 02/26/10
Parallel 02/19/10
Murder Your Darlings 02/12/10
Stiletto 02/05/10
Bleed 01/29/10
Shades of Cray 01/22/10
i HAIT It here 01/15/10
Title Date Synopsis
Behāv 01/08/10 Be good, for goodness' sake.
Dante's Infirmity 01/01/10 About one man's health care.
An Iraqi Christmas Carol 12/25/09 Christmas. In Iraq.
Allocation 12/18/09 Economics.
Illegal 12/11/09 Immigration law.
Broken Teeth 12/04/09 About Iran and the power of persuasion.
Fat Grandmas Are Nicer 11/27/09 For Virginia.
Fighting Mad 11/20/09 About Ft. Hood and some of the things it revealed.
S'Work 11/13/09 About sex work in a lousy economy.
Failure Cascade 11/06/09 About how quickly life on a space elevator can fall apart.
Reformatory 10/30/09 It's Halloween, and I think it's time somebody scared you straight.
Mine 10/23/09 A tale of surgery, revenge, and explosives.
Capricorn 10/16/09 A tale of magic and tumors and unicorns.
Traveled Time 10/09/09 About times of your life.
Seed 10/02/09 About the (re)cycle of a life.
Censlus 09/25/09 About the end of a life.
Euthanasia 09/18/09 A story about ending lives.
Check Out 09/11/09 An ending to a Columbian tale.
Lockerbie 09/03/09 It's not about the bombing, but our humanity.
Unwarrantied 08/28/09 A man past his prime, even past the expiration of his warranty.
Natural Born 08/21/09 A birther coming to grips with his own ancestry.
Jesus Loves Me (Just Not In That Way) 08/14/09 I need you in the audience to clap, clap harder to make him straight.
Blood Loss 08/07/09 Another wrinkle in the abortion debate.
DID Have 07/31/09 About the memories we leave behind.
Poopfood 07/24/09 It's really not as crass as it sounds.
1:1 07/17/09 The mathematics of family planning.
Easter 07/10/09 Meditation on fatherhood, longevity and scientific spiritualism.
Alice 07/03/09 Wonderland on acid.
Darling, Wendy M. A. 06/26/09 A different take on never growing up.
Ann, Raggedy 06/19/09 The tragedy that broke the candy heart of a doll.
Eponine 06/12/09 The rest of the story of Les Miserables' tragic femme.
Dorothy 06/05/09 Supplemental police report from the Gale farmhouse in Topeka, KS.
Goldilocks 05/29/09 An ADHD erotic fairytale- so yes, a happy ending to the profanity month of stories.
My Cuntry 05/22/09 The fourth in a now intentional profaniy month series, about equality and about Time.
Effed 05/15/09 The third in a (til now) unintentional profaniy month story, about women's position during the economic crisis.
Wiki:Dick 05/08/09 Edit warring never sounded so petty.
The S Word 05/01/09 Because you can never have too many curse words.
Family Business 04/24/09 Following in their father's footsteps.
Spirit 04/17/09 An explanation of the blackouts of NASA's Spirit rover.
Lieterate 04/10/09 About the lies we tell each other, and why.
tweet-tweet 04/03/09 Twittering + mountain search & rescue.
Shrink 03/27/09 The economic crisis has all kinds of unforeseen effects.
Natural End 03/20/09 Sometimes the conclusion isn't where a story should end.
Brickmouth 03/13/09 A vampire in Venice.
Life 03/06/09 A science fiction meditation on life, the Universe, and everything.
Barbie at 50 02/27/09 The iconic blond turns gold.
How Far We’ve Come 02/20/09 Hopefully this scrubs the Michael Bolton out of my subconscious (and yours)....
When a Man Tricks a Woman 02/13/09 Love is an addiction, and men are just fiends.
Buy the Cow 02/06/09 The recession hits the homestead.
Weakness 01/30/09 About the growing incidence of suicide in the military.
This is America Now 01/23/09 An inauguration/MLK Day story.
From Russia, With Love 01/16/09 From the mouths of babes.
Dead if You Do 01/09/09 An Alzheimer's story (I know, I know, back to writing about loss...).
Unlucky at Math 01/02/09 It's a new year, damnit, and I'm tired of writing about loss.
What I Didn’t Get For Christmas 12/26/08 A white Christmassy sort of story.
Lost in Space 12/19/08 Apparently this month I've been writing about love and loss... which was completely accidental.
Bettie Page is Dead 12/12/08 For a woman who could be classy while naked as a jay bird.
Marvin’s Dead 12/05/08 Poor Marvin...
Freedom at the End of a Gun 11/28/08 Cause really, it's all about security.
One More Night 11/21/08 In Naples.
I'm sorry I got caught in your house 11/14/08 I swear it wasn't my idea.
Vote You Bastards 11/04/08 Don't be swine: do your civic duty.
Frankenstein Modern 10/31/08 An update of an old classic, in time for Halloween (bacon extra).
Cowgirl Up 10/24/08 For Jeannine. Everyone else take care of yourselves- I want to be done with dedications this year.
SeXplosive 10/17/08 From the creators of the nitroglycerine rimjob.
Ticking 10/10/08 About breast cancer and the biological imperative; from the makers of the cunnilingus hand grenade.
Sex Bomb 10/03/08 Brought to you by fellatio dynamite.
Red 09/26/08 It’s an election season, and I can’t say no to a gimmick.
White 09/19/08 A belated (and interrelated) anniversary of another kind.
Blue 09/12/08 A belated Labor Day gift to anyone who's ever worked an honest day.
Must Like Classical 09/05/08 You are what you hear.
Cinderella Shoes 08/29/08 You'll feel witty.
Honest Day’s Playbor 08/22/08 Given a little somethin-somethin to a virtual economy.
Part Time 08/15/08 Getting by's going to be a fulltime gig soon enough. I reckon
Automatic Justice 08/08/08 A story of a truly impartial judiciary.
Glass Half Drunk 08/01/08 A sloppy little bedtime story, not shaken, but slurred.
About Your Breasts 07/25/08 Symposium from your friendly neighborhood expert on a subject very near and dear to my heart (and, consequently, yours).
The Courage of Our Convictions 07/18/08 We must not let this happen.
e-bort 07/11/08 A little ditty about Saudi ladies and choice.
Four-Fisted Computing 07/04/08 If these processors could talk...
My Beloved's Eyes 06/27/08 Love means sharing your organs.
Undisciplined 06/20/08 Ugh. Bastard server ate original witty thing. Insert new witty thing later. Or put burned carcass of server here instead. Either make cheery decoration.
Off Grid 06/13/08 Isolation as a solution to the problem with isolationism.
Cockfight 06/06/08 Farmer's soliloquy about honor, order and his place in the world.
People Like Her 05/30/08 Attraction by subtraction.
Artificial Romance 05/23/08 On love in the age of work-induced hibernation.
Project Kansas 05/16/08 Epic questions about the confectionary afterlife.
The Cost of Being Me 05/09/08 Musings about consequence in the afterlife.
Randomly Accessed Memory 05/02/08 Recall working, just out of order.
Analog Memory 04/25/08 For the convenience of our other patrons, please rewind after viewing.
A Hole in Memory 04/18/08 About the cruel trickery of memory. For Dee.
Ancestral Memory 04/11/08 There's all kinds of information hidden in our DNA...
Genetic Memory 04/04/08 The story of a man and his dog (and the sock that brought them together).
Medicine 03/28/08 Not to be taken orally.
Last Gift 03/21/08 I'll have Christmas in March if I want to. For Effie.
Freetown 03/14/08 A guided tour through Sierra Leone from a man with a singular sense of justice.
Two For One 03/07/08 Two can be the loneliest number, too.
First Goodbye 02/29/08 A romance as bittersweet as wine.
Living Legend 02/22/08 I can't quell my obsession with Russia... or British sitcoms.
Fainting Game 02/15/08 Because I find myself between Valentine's Day stories at the moment, actually, you get something else entirely.
Super Duper Tuesday Blues 02/08/08 Sequel to last month's Primary School.
One Man's Home 02/01/08 Oftentimes the best punishment is subtlety.
Rejection 01/25/08 Sometimes it's hard not to take medicine personally.
fightsex 01/18/08 There is not a thin line between love and hate; there is, however, a thin line between sex and punching someone in the face (medically speaking).
Life Imprisonment 01/11/08 Sometimes the only escape is incarceration.
Primary School 01/04/08 Because I'm already full of fire and brimstone this electoral season.
Naughty or Nice 12/28/07 As my gift to you this year, I’m letting you choose what’s coming down your chimney.
Gun Control 12/21/07 A somewhat satirical look at what control means.
Fearless 12/14/07 Based roughly around Watson's experiment with Little Albert, and the damage it may have caused.
Forget 12/07/07 Sometimes the best kind of revenge is to let go.
Bourbon and Blood 11/30/07 What negotiation tastes like.
Sentence 11/23/07 Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to finish yours.
Present Tense 11/16/07 The rectal temperature of the American workplace (insert favorite fecal joke here).
She Wants to be Seduced 11/09/07 A sleazy little sonata by moonlight.
Cro'atan 11/02/07 Because it's Halloween(ish) and I feel like telling a ghost story.
Civil Discourse 10/26/07 Can't we all just get along?
Playing Dirty 10/19/07 All's fair in love and war.
Control Your Breathing 10/12/07 It's all about self-control.
Baby Back 10/05/07 I wonder what the return policy might be.
War Profiteering 9/28/07 Hey, it's a living.
Some Blood For Oil 9/21/07 A modest proposal.
AmeriCricket 9/14/07 A bug's life.
888 9/07/07 Myanmar.
Smoke 8/31/07 Because.
Exodus 8/24/07 Repeating.
I Ran 8/17/07 Watch me go.
Canary 8/10/07 Life in a mineshaft.
Today, at Twelve 8/03/07 A story about loss and dying.
One Last Time 7/27/07 A haunted tale of unrequited love.
There is smoke 7/20/07 There's been a fire burning for quite some time.
Fire Ants 7/13/07 A meditation on childhood genocide and the nature of godliness.
Aqua Samba 7/06/07 A gentle lullaby about mortality, destiny and hubris.
The Last 64 Days of Old Soldiers 6/29/07 Because humanity may not go out with a bang at all.
Terrorists: 1 6/22/07 Letting paranoia run rampant on paper.
Anynol 6/15/07 The hidden dangers of strange intoxication.
Ghost Dust 6/08/07 If you read only one short story this year...
Archangelsk Protocols 6/01/07 The end of an era. We'd gone so long pretending we were high-class. I'm not proud of myself. Okay. A little proud.
Brain Chocolate 5/25/07 Eat and be saved.
Filter 5/18/07 Because when the internet goes silent, no one will hear us scream.
Kipland 5/11/07 The voices tell you to read it, goddamnit.
Nikah 5/04/07 Lest anyone think I'm always down on Sudan, a story about one thing the country's done right: marriage.
White Pride 4/27/07 A response of sorts to the complaint that someone isn't black enough.
Bloody Hands 4/20/07 A Western response to current happenings.
Bone Children 4/13/07 Author's Note: this is not a paedophillic edict, but a description of the offspring. Wear no panties, buy my waffles. That is all.
Extra-Marital 4/06/07 Because you can't just have one.
Fifteen 3/30/07 Cuba took thirteen days, Iran has 15 seconds.
Support 3/23/07 We all support them in theory, but how well have we actually done?
Colossus 3/16/07 A tribute to Lovecraft, and the terrible demons that plagued him.
A Fullton Life 3/09/07 The second part of the series on vengeance and justice. What is the world coming to when Texas and Georgia are leading the way?
Stammheim 3/02/07 The first part of a series on vengeance and justice.
A Child's Introduction to Terrorism 2/23/07 Because it's time we were honest with our children. Ish.
Purgatory of Dreams 2/14/07 It's not Friday, but it's Valentine's Day, and this story just wouldn't keep.
Theft at the Speed of Bureaucracy 2/09/07 The wheels of the justice bus turn slowly.
Pirates in Space 2/02/07 Because everyone needs their own Sealand.
Jahannam 1/26/07 It's about time we talked about Baghdad.
A Life in Porn 1/19/07 It's not what you think.
Last Rights 1/12/07 A story about death with dignity.
Not-For-Profit 1/5/07 First new story of the new year. And yes, it's a story about economics.
Heaven's Insurgence 12/29/06 Do not open until 12/29. Or if you do, just consider it your Christmas present, since I'll be gone on vacation.
Christmas Blitzkrieg 12/22/06 A story about viral warfare and specicide.
Conflict 12/15/06 Of blood and diamonds and decaying romance.
Penis Envy 12/08/06 A treatise on male reproductive rights, divorce law, and our strange fascination with endowments.
To Hide 12/01/06 A story about political asylum and Hugo Chavez.
Two 11/24/06 A Thanksgiving story about bastards.
Violent Extremists 11/17/06 Reaction to the TASER incident at UCLA.
Azl 11/10/06 A cautionary tale about Iraq, and pulling out too soon.
Vote fu 11/03/06 After reading this story you will know kung fu, and have an insatiable desire to vote. With your fists.
democracyinaction 10/27/06 A story about the ambitions of economics.
da'wa 10/20/06 An incredibly late story about the Iranian situation.
PWI 10/13/06 Some jobs are just too crazy to take while sober.
Bought & Sold 10/06/06 There is a price.
Interrorgation 09/29/06 There should always be limits.
Church & State 09/22/06 Life in a theocracy and how it ends.
Quit 09/15/06 Sometimes the hardest thing to stop is yourself (although I'm sure that sounds more contemplative than it is).
New Corpse Smell 09/08/06 Because I can't say no when someone asks me to write about zombies.
Death Echoes 09/01/06 A detective plagued by the dead.
INDUCEd Piracy 08/25/06 A little ditty about the future of intellectual property rights.
Four Degrees Above Freezing 08/18/06 Condensed detective story, and if the system eats my updates again I'm going to burn their servers to the ground.
Faith Emmanuel 08/11/06 A man finds himself indebted to a hospital where human parts are considered more valuable than the whole.
BlindeDating 08/04/06 A man is outmaneuevered by his cupid-playing aunt.
Amok 07/29/06 A story about berserkers across cultures, and the last of the suicide month stories.
Suicides Don't Buy Groceries 07/22/06 A sad sack realizes his own limitations; third of the suicide month stories.
Vodka Revolver 07/14/06 A moment in Russian life, probably near the end of it.
Murder/Suicide 07/07/06 Originally my reaction to a friend's suicide attempt. It kicked off a whole month of similar thinking. I agonized over the story, and while there are a few points I may not quite agree with anymore, it's still a story that gets to me.
Receding Aura 06/30/06 Where science meets philosophy and shame.
A Mixed Diagnosis 06/23/06 The meeting of the follies of romance and medicine.
Fire and the Grasshopper 06/16/06 A fable about possibilities and the ancestral fear of flame.
Ax 06/09/06 Beware the late-night shopping of others.
06/02/06 This week I originally posted the outline for X4; now I point you to the finished script here.
Black Thoughts 05/26/06 Because sometimes we all need help cleaning the darkness out of our soul.
Strange Candy 05/19/06 Sometimes sweetness comes in unexpected ways.
Sinai 05/12/06 Asking the question may be the only reason to be.
Freedom of the Press 05/05/06 A piece in honor of Press Freedom Day (May 3rd).
Hacked 04/28/06 About the future of cybercrime and punishment
Finding Jesus 04/21/06 Some people are willing to go farther for enlightenment than most.
Hickbots 04/14/06 Sometimes science fiction needs to get a little dust on its boots.
ShelvesHalfEmpty 04/07/06 A melancholy consumerist romance.
Carpet Remnants 03/31/06 About the things we leave behind.
Waiting Room 03/24/06 The end.
The Last Day of Me 03/17/06 You never really know who you are until you don't.
Future Spirits 03/10/06 Best enjoyed with red wine. Or white. Or rum.
Fingernails 03/03/06 Posted out of order for comparison with the script based on this short story. The story contains a sexual assault, so reader discretion is advised.
Medicinal Lullaby 02/24/06 One of my middle children, the queit piece, the calm one. Because it's night time, and I feel like whispering someone to sleep.
Something to Say 02/17/06 The beginning of my love affair with forensic fiction, and the first Friday Night Story.

Blog
For the the new blog, click here, or choose below for one of the superhero interview blogs.
Batman Comes Out                         .
Out of the cave. Out of the cowl. Out of the closet.
Death of Superman
Interview with the Man of Steel about fighting the greatest foe of his life: cancer

Other
Other short stories and things you'd expect to be labelled "other."
Title Synopsis
Bloody Valentine Technically a precursor to the FNS, this was written on Valentine's Day in 2005. I swear to God I woke up with a bloody nose, and I figured that, on V Day, that had to have some significance.
Love with Rockets Exactly one year after my Bloody Valentine, this story became the impetus behind the Friday Night Story, and started my flowering into a woman. Sort of.
Fuck the Earth Day Because Mother Earth has been screwing with us for too long...
Women and Children First Because I said so, that's why.
Quail! For quite some time the Bio on the LiveJournal. I thought it should get it's own nod.
a small miracle A short story from 2004. It is entirely the loneliest thing I've ever written.
I am old A short sci fi story about aging.