A.R. Eakle

“The way rain changes the color of the sidewalk” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #258

I was in the park taking a picture of an oak tree from a bench. I had my elbow firmly planted on my thigh; the heavy lens cupped in the palm of my hand and trying to wait for the wind to blow the leaves and branches in just the right way. I wasn’t paying attention to anything else. I snapped the shot. It wasn’t until afterwards that I noticed the woman in the yellow dress that was just on the edge of my shot taking a picture of the exact same tree. At first, I was irritated. Then I looked up from my camera and watched her. I decided to walk ...

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“Persuasion” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #248

 I know I will love her forever. What else is there to do in a life? She is gentle and slender, fragile yet powerful, like a quaking aspen. If I could compare the beauty of the world to anything, I would compare it to her.“What are you smiling at?” she asks me.“You.”“You’re smiling at me?”“And the thought of you,” I tell her.We are at home, doing nothing in particular. A simple evening, the weather outside wet and humid. It is transitioning from winter to spring with the smell of fresh rain and the sounds of new birds.I sit next to her,...

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“How We Forgive is Different for Everybody” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #245

Out on 9, as the locals call it, the highway runs parallel to a flat plain that runs the stretch of road over ten miles. Lines of wire fences, not noticeable from the roadway unless you’re looking for them, block off the plots of land every few hundred yards. Every so often a row of power lines cut gently through the fields. The farm-kept bison and horses catch any traveling eye. Cows, destined for slaughter and dairy production, dot several farms with modest houses on them. There are small ponds and marshes off the side of the road from the...

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“Now Here” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #220

I was dreaming about something, something that I didn’t know. Something far, far bigger than myself. Or maybe I wasn’t dreaming of anything at all. No, no. That’s not right at all. I was definitely, or at the very least, likely, dreaming of something. But then, maybe nothing is, in fact, far bigger than myself. Bigger than any of us, really. In that sense it is entirely likely that I was dreaming of nothing. But not nothing as in nothing. Nothing as in a vast space of darkness. I suppose darkness is some type of something then, e...

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“SILENCE: The Beginning” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #218

In the forgotten town of Eldridge the silence was palpable. It had been this way for centuries. Not the serene quietude of a tranquil meadow, or the mindful looking-on of a faraway mountain, but a stifling void where the absence of laughter is thick in the air. No children’s laughter echoes through the streets, no birdsong whispers in the neglected parks. It was as if sound itself had packed its bags and abandoned Eldridge, leaving behind a haunting stillness that begged to be unraveled. And in the heart of this auditory void,...

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“A Tree Always Hears Itself Fall” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #210

Splendid oak trees, porcupines, chocolate chip cookies, and sting rays. Maybe there’s something to life that I haven’t yet figured out. Maybe it’s less about thumbtacks and climate change and more about the Pyramids of Giza and the process of turning cherries into coffee. Post-it notes filled to the brim with words but lacking any real information line the bottom of my monitor, but really what in life can be summed up in a way to fit on a post-It note? Or is it just the opposite? That everything in life is meant to fit on a single note and t...

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“Strings of Solace” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #199

The moon was high over her, seemingly taunting her. It illuminated the entire sky in a way that made it almost seem human, like it had emotions and feelings and memories, and she wondered if the moon was sad or happy or angry or indifferent. She sat on a park bench; it was approaching midnight and there were few stars in the sky that could be seen through the light pollution of the city. Beside her sat her violin in a black case. The trees seemed to shake and come to a rest as if taking their seats. She looked around and saw nobody. She was...

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“I Don't Know When I'm Coming Home Again” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #134

This is where the day started: ice cream, root beer floats, and pancakes for breakfast. Followed by three hours of cartoons, forts, and hide and seek. I was it, of course.  By noon, both girls were down for a nap. But me, I cleaned the kitchen, picked up the living room, and starting preparing lunch. Frozen pizzas. By the end of this weekend, the girls wouldn’t want anything other than to live with me. It was after lunch and we were watching a show Aubrey picked, the five-year-old. She was twirling her curly, blonde hair around a finger...

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“Woven” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #128

I’m pouring us a cup of tea, just for the two of us. It’s not for the whole world, it isn’t even for the people down the street. It’s only for her and for me. The steam wafts up and warms my hands, wetting them. And it feels like a bit of it is melting, lightly like the way a flame slowly melts a candle. Mine, green. Hers, jasmine. She’s always been that way and in that is something I’ve always loved about her. Not too different, but different enough to notice. Maybe that’s the way she wants to be remembered, just a little different. Enough ...

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“The Fan Told Me She was Leaving” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #106

   I thought I was in love before. Really, none of us are in love. But we’re afraid of not being in love, like if we don’t have it we’ll die alone. The truth is we die alone anyway, in love or not. We love out of selfishness. Whether it’s real or not, it can still hurt us. Like God, or Heaven, or Hell. And there has to be some beauty in that somewhere, even if I can’t see it. The room I write in is usually clouded in smoke so thick that sometimes I have trouble seeing the computer screen while I’m writing. Most of the time I’m...

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“Barry and the Burning Dog” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #92

The sun beaming in through the window lays so still on the wooden floor that it’s hard to walk without feeling like I’m going to wake up the sun. Like I’m tiptoeing around fire. A glance out the window are green hills rolling into the horizon, like green ocean waves covered in wildflowers. It’s hard to believe in sadness with a view so beautiful. The house is full of antique farm equipment and knick-knacks and the kind of junk that only a lifetime worth of love and passion could ever hope to appreciate. The areas where the sun cuts through ...

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“Mommy's Boy is Dead” by A.R. Eakle

   I graduated from Harvard back in the late 90s. That’s when I was officially a doctor. I traveled around a bit doing residency. First it was at a hospital in New Orleans. Then from there I was at a place in Arkansas. I wasn’t there very long. Eventually I ended up back where I had started, or at least as near to it as I could be, and still today I’m not sure if I would have been better off across the country or not. I was pushed from elementary school to be perfect, to exceed any expectations that people may have had of me...

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“There Is No Heaven Behind the Moon” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #80

It was back in ‘69. My dad had me down at a bar and I was only five or six at that time. It was common back then, for kids to be in bars. The bar culture was different back then. It was just a place for people to get together, drink, shoot some pool, throw some darts, and watch sports. It wasn’t what it is today. There was a lot of cigarette smoke. It was back when you could still smoke indoors, so everybody had a smoke in their hand or their in between their lips. My dad had me in the stool in front of him pointing up to the television, b...

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“The People in the Windows” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #74

He’s only about fifteen yards away from us, this madman with a gun and two children standing in front of him like pawns on a chess board. The pavement is new beneath his feet and the painted lines, the pavement markers, they’re crisp and bright. There’s ten of us and only one of him and only two children. I can feel my heart beat in my throat, each pulse gagging me, punching on my uvula. I can barely hear my sergeant yelling commands like, “Drop the gun,” and, “Nobody has to get hurt,” and other things that I can’t hear over the throbbing of...

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“Where the Red Trees Turn Blue” by A.R. Eakle

Submitted to Contest #71

Grover opened his eyes as he always did at four in the morning, peering to the left side of his bed at a now-empty pillow that he still fluffed every night. It always looked the same in the morning as it did the evening prior. He slipped out of bed and grabbed his pants from the weeks before, the thighs thick with flour and sugar and the other stains of a day’s labor. On the dresser was the shirt that was just as ill fitting and gritty. With a jingle of his keys and a quick pull of the door behind him, Grover headed down two blocks thro...

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