Modern Setting Stories

Dorian Gray: Agatha idled the car up the quiet dark driveway, eased on the brake to stop before the closed garage door, and then pressed down fully on the brake to come to a complete stop. There in front of the garage door she remained for a while, staring blankly ahead, until after some time she put the car in park and took her foot off of the brake. With the car in park, she took the key out of the ignition, and sighed in the quiet that followed now that the engine was turned off. Well, it was something of quiet.

Aliyah, Madeline, Four Candles: The crowd hadn’t even gotten there yet. It was merely the act of setting up to play Radio City Music Hall that made me realize we were not just a successful band—already a miracle—but that we were a big-dick famous band. At first I had wondered whether the stage crew may have already had a long day prior to our arrival, or whether they really were just weirdly inexperienced for such a large venue, because as we worked, they seemed almost perplexed by our fairly normal desire to be a part of arranging the instruments on stage, and doubly perplexed by our fairly normal selection of instruments, and had very mixed reactions on Aliyah’s great dane, Lion, who was bounding around the stage and sniffing things.

Melvin, Lilly, Raspberry Whiskey: Last night I discovered that when I get severely drunk, I do not keep secrets. Previously this had never been a matter of consequence, as I had only ever been severely drunk alone.

The Cult: I step into the cafe, have a seat on a bar stool, set my helmet on the counter, and order coffee and the breakfast that the hostess recommends. As I sit and wait, I find myself staring down at the ring finger of my right hand. A week ago I managed to give it a not-small cut while opening a beer bottle. Today, there’s only one red speck where it’s still healing, and a faint scratch where the rest of the already-healed wound was. I marvel at how the body heals. It seems passive, unimpressive, like something that actually should work better than it does, but it’s remarkable that we do this at all, and I find myself thankful. I wonder whether it would have been more interesting to get into biology.

Definitely John *******’s True Thoughts On Zoophilia: One day on August 7th, when John ******* was twenty years old, he and his friend (let’s call him Leslie) were each drinking from their own bottle of Jim Beam Double Oak Twice Barreled Bourbon as they sat below a birch tree at night, looking out at the shimmering moonlit waters of Lake Lester.

Shooting Stars: The first time I met Blake Xavier-Schneider, he was 1) alive, and 2) attending the same Beverly Hills mansion party that I was. I don’t actually think that he’s dead now, for the record, I just feel like it’s becoming more and more like a good guess with the way he acts.

Blue Guitar: Mrs Michaels stepped into the pawn shop off the highway, and was greeted by a rush of air conditioning and the chime of a digital bell sounding over the door. Looking around the brightly-lit space, there were rows of DVDs, a bunch of power tools in the back, a wall of various VCRs and other TV accoutrements, and, hanging on the wall behind the glass counter full of jewelry, there was what she had come here for: a selection of electric guitars. As Mrs Michaels began making her way there, a clerk poked his head up from one of the DVD aisles. “Help you find anything?”

Sons of Belial: Azure licked their partner’s anus, taking in nostril-flared sniffs as they did, creating as wide a cavity inside of their nose as possible for smell particles to land on. Smells were important to them.

Tiberius: Meg Pittman leaned back in her swivel chair, holding her steaming cup of coffee in both hands under her nose. It was hazelnut, and the smell was always cozy to her. It reminded her of log cabins, antique furniture, overcast drizzling days.

The Renegade Jack of Hearts: Oh it had been good at first. It had seemed like something out of a story book, or a bad movie. They had met by singing together, for Christ’s sake. In their college dorm.

Lustucia Writers Meeting: We were standing around in the writers’ lounge, playing darts. Peter had just brought up to Bruce, “How do you picture the balcony scene?” Bruce stood there, dart in hand. You’d believe he was actually thinking of an answer to Peter’s question. More likely, Bruce really had his mind on that throw. Especially with the benefit of looking back afterwards, knowing that after a day of puncturing new holes in the drywall, he then took his time on that one, maybe had something click or, sure, maybe got lucky, but some way or another he threw and got damn close to a bullseye.

Talking Around: “Henry, do you want to show auntie your drawing? Let’s see. Ohhh, wow. That sword looks dangerous. It’s a good drawing.”

Woe Betide Him That Hath A Narrow Heart: The studio was an abandoned gas station in Nebraska, reseeded with new purposes, the weeds of its old purposes pulled out root and all. They had toppled over the big sign and taken apart all of the pumps, and hung canvases over the edges of the roof overhead of the pumping area to create a sort of canopy tent out of the sort of geological feature of industry.

Conversatin, Like, Talkin With Each Other About Stuff: AJ stood at the counter, wagging an imaginary tail and singing a song to himself as he counted the bills from the register into piles of 100s.

Apparently Existing: Lauren woke up with a gasp of breath, feeling everything in the world around her come into crisp detail with the invigorating oxygen like a fire flaming up from being stoked. Trees loomed over her in the daylight, their skinny arms all dancing in the breeze. Dry and dead leaves were crunched under her cheek.

False Flag For Funsies: Clyde and Melvin shook hands.

C.O.A.S.T.: We woke up from a nap that evening, the kind of nap where you have plummeted into your deepest abandoning of consciousness, not a gallop over to sleeping and back without stopping, but sauntering over and staying, sniffing prolongedly at the clovers of dissociation, the saplings of demented all intense dream, and only pulled out back to the waking world as though we were a heavy tree being dragged by chains.

Basement Lounge Night: “She has no idea what she’s doing right now.”

Reception: The receptionist called out to the filled up waiting room, “John Andrews.” Two John Andrewses rose up from their chairs at the same time, made eye contact, and then awkwardly both sat back down increment by increment.