Andrew Fruchtman

“Orbsession” by Andrew Fruchtman

My grandson is obsessed with the moon. At eighteen months old he points to the sky and says “moo.” Close, unless of course he means the cow that jumped over the moon. I explain that the moon can only be seen in the night sky when it’s dark not during the day, even though it’s still really there. He usually goes to look through one particular set of windows in the guest bedroom since that was the first time he became aware of it and so thinks it’s always visible from there. I explain about how the moon also rises much like the sun a...

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“Dragon My Heart” by Andrew Fruchtman

Submitted to Contest #185

So, it had been five hundred years, as usual, since the last meeting of the Dragoneers Club and at the most recent meeting Puff had caught some serious shade from his fellow brother and sister dragons. Sure he had been made famous in the Sixties because of that popular eponymous song, but that kid Jackie Paper had left him with a big problem and a reputation as a dysfunctional Hoarder. You see dragons were supposed to hoard gold in some form or other and all Puff had were strings, sealing wax, and other fancy stuff, none of which were g...

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“Rare View Mirror” by Andrew Fruchtman

Submitted to Contest #103

   So here they were barreling down the highway in the middle of nowhere. Now, I’m sure that those who lived here would take exception to being called nowhere, but from their car window all that could be seen for miles and miles were grass, soil, and hills as far as the horizon. It had been this way for the last two hours. Wyoming was like that.  “Sure glad we filled up the tank back at that last stop,” Jack said, turning a sideways glance at his daughter in the passenger seat. “Me too,” she agree...

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“Deja You” by Andrew Fruchtman

Submitted to Contest #100

Our story starts with a man puttering in a kitchen. Let’s call him Michael, once the most popular male name in America. Michael is preparing a very special meal for his wife. Let’s call her Susan. It is their forty-fifth wedding anniversary. Michael is fast approaching his seventieth birthday, the age where you max out your social security benefits but non-max just about everything else in your life. The age where you hesitate and second think your own mores and abilities as social and technological changes occur. The age where you can clear...

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“Flower Power” by Andrew Fruchtman

Submitted to Contest #86

  The flowers stopped arriving in early December, nearly four months after her husband, Harry, had succumbed to the Coronavirus.  Harry had been a robust man of sixty-four who still maintained a full head of hair, albeit bordering on white. Leah, his wife, would call him her Silver Fox and after forty years of marriage it still made him blush. Erect back and spry steps gave him the appearance of a younger man, but he knew that even a few years younger was still old.  No matter, he intended to keep working till h...

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“Cheating the System” by Andrew Fruchtman

Submitted to Contest #84

He always thought of himself as clever. He had an odd sense of humor that leaned towards the dark but it amused him, if not always others, and that was, after all, what was really important wasn’t it? He would write the occasional story and poem and feel satisfied at a particular turn of phrase or description. His wife loved getting handwritten poems on special occasions and he felt he was doing his part to stick it to Hallmark and their overpriced cards. The blog began simply to give him a place to vent and rant at the irrational, the polit...

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