A.R. Eakle

“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. ...

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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 Eldrid...

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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 summe...

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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...

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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 w...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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.

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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 everyb...

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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 yel...

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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 il...

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“Stickers” by A.R. Eakle

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #40

Timothy Morrison is standing in a room on a chair with a light bulb in his hand. It’s just past ten o’clock at night, and the light bulb is still warm through the faded yellow bandana. A bandana with nostalgic bloodstains on it from the time he was ten and stole it from the top drawer of his mother’s dresser. The blood is from a time he was on the river bank; a river bank his mother told him to stay away from countless times.  Find me a ten-year-old that listens and I’ll find you the next Dalai Lama. He was stan...

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