"The Wind Twirls Everything" is a 40-page collection of flash fiction stories. Published by MuscleHead Press, Russell, NY.  Read sample stories below.  To order a copy, go to Contact Me/Order Books page.

One Marriage Later               Julie says “what’s another word for love?  Six letters.”             Jack has no idea, having just tipped the bellboy a hundred dollars by mistake.             The same palm trees outside the same Caribbean window.  “I thought this would be different.” She sighs.             “I heard,” Jacks says “that a hundred bucks is like a thousand down here.”  He picks up the phone and presses O.             “What’s another word for liar, cheater, thief?” Julie says, squeezing now into a too-tight bikini.             Totally unaware, Jack fumes on hold.  Bach concerto or Olivia freakin’ Newton-John.             “You know,” she says when the bra doesn’t close; “I really hoped this would fit.” She tugs and tugs at the lycra spandex.  She rearranges her breasts.  Finally, she gives up and goes back to her puzzle.  “What’s another word for another word?”             Jack finally speaks to the phone. “Your bellboy” he says, “I just got robbed.”

Jake is a forgotten piece.  Puzzle-edged and jigsawed, he never seems to fit.  He’s had women he doesn’t remember, a daughter he doesn’t know. He met her mother, a dancer, on a payday spree.  She was a face and he was a face going out matchlike after the alley.  Drunken and quick.  My parents only met for five minutes, the daughter might later say.             And then, Jake stumbling over beer cans and trash cans, going home to his wife, poor thing.  When he opens the door, she is knitting him a cap.  She has been waiting for his weekly check.  Pay the lights.  Pay the heat.  Pay the grocer.  He turns his empty pockets inside out.  I owed it all to Flynn, he says.             She feeds him what is left.  Hot porridge with sliced banana.  He doesn’t know about his daughter growing inside a stranger’s belly.  I don’t deserve you, he tells his porridge wife.             You can’t really blame him, his mother would say.  Too good looking.  Cursed with his father’s Irish hair.  Thick, black piles of it to break a woman’s heart.  Too clever, his buddies would say.  Tells the ladies what they like to hear.  Too easy, alcohol would say.   I shine my bottle, and he’s mine.             One day, perhaps, he sees a baby in a mother’s arm.  A dark blip crosses his heart.  Something puzzle-missing from his life.  Something vague that is his, if he only knew.   Something like a breath that leaves a mouth,  travels a hundred miles, and strokes a stranger’s ear.

Follow               Like prehistoric ooze, my lover’s heart changes its shape each month when the moon goes zero.  That’s when he turns animal and leaves me in search of other prey.             Me, I always follow.  I got head stuff you wouldn’t believe.  A right-thinking woman would have dusted this man off her hands long ago.              This time, I have followed my lover to Tucson, AZ.  He’s hooked up with a pancake waitress.  He liked the way the batter dotted her chin, and they left in a flurry of suitcase and car exhaust.  Told me not to trail them.  “Keep your dog nose outta my stuff” is what he said, “I don’t need you sniffin’ us down.”             I gave him a two day start.             Then I got his Tucson address from his mother.  I told her I’m carrying her grandkid, and don’t he have a right to know?              So, tonight I am in a strange motel surrounded by ghost towns and cactus.  The manager asks if I need anything, and I don’t know where to begin.  I could tell him I need the man I am chasing to make up for a lifetime of love I never got. Instead I ask for a wake up call.  “This ain’t the Holiday Inn” is what he says.             .Next morning, I’m up at 5 a.m.  The sky outside is in ribbons.  No back home sunrise ever looked like this.  Colors I don’t even have names for.  Pinks and purples bursting the sky.             “Tucson morning” the manager winks.  I drink free mud coffee and ask him which way’s Baker Street.             “What’s a pretty girl like you want with Baker Street?” is what he wants to know.  “Nothing but losers and thugs.”  He is a narrow man made out of wingy bones and blood red eyes.  Looks about 70 and ready to fold up like a lawn chair.             I say I’m lookin’ for my brother cause our poor daddy died, and he points to a Chevy truck out front all scabby with rust.  “Get in” is what he says.             The truck smells of gasoline, and the radio scratches with Tucson news.  Local burglars and the women who love them.  “See, it’s not just me” is what I tell myself.             On Baker Street nothin’ but broken houses in patchy light.  I check the address.  The old man waits in the truck.  I walk up the stony sidewalk.  Even from here, I can hear them squabbling over money and such.              No surprise.  Each month, my lover comes back, arms full of roses.  He says new love turns old love awful quick.  He says I should be fluid.  My hand balls itself into a fist about to knock.