Scott Jacobs

“Specter” by Scott Jacobs

Submitted to Contest #216

I awake within myself. There’s someone sitting across from me, with jet black hair lightly tempered by hints of placid gray washing into shore; he has to crane his neck from the clouds to meet my gaze. His hardy smile tells me he’s ready to take on the world at a moment’s notice. “You’re up! You talk loud in your sleep, y’know.”  “Are we… there yet?” The words are visceral, drifting languidly through the muggy swamp festering in my mouth without my steering the raft. I’m a specter haunting my own body. “No, we stopped and I’ve b...

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“Waiting On The Train” by Scott Jacobs

Submitted to Contest #208

The weeds are pumped with blood, unmitigated residence in these parts allowing them to grow wildly through the cracks in the wood and the seedy underbelly of stones. The meek ones stick to the tracks, but the most brazen reach up to the train. They’ve caught the cow catcher; they’ve wrapped accordion-style in between its metal prongs. Up in the sky slumped trees shroud the locomotive in vines. I suspect their awkward embrace is unwanted–the tendrils are delaying its arrival at the end of the world. I watch my step as I get closer–the weeds...

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“Bottom Rock” by Scott Jacobs

Submitted to Contest #206

At the bottom of the earth there’s a speaker. I couldn’t tell you where it is–believe me, I’ve looked–but what I do know is that it’s been playing the same NSYNC song for two years. Don’t get me wrong, NSYNC’s not bad by any means. But there’s two problems. First, it’s a song from their Christmas album, creating complications that should be self-evident. Second, the speaker’s junk. Justin Timberlake’s singing is great, but not when he’s being dragged kicking and screaming from the golden throne of high fidelity as the drummer scrapes his fin...

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“Evangeline” by Scott Jacobs

Submitted to Contest #204

Dear Evangeline It’s raining outside–it’s been raining for days. I’d like to think that as you’re off in your dreams over in the other room you hear the incessant pitter-patter somewhere far away and it soothes you, and at the same time the lightning strikes that want to frighten you don’t reach your ears at all. I know that’s impossible, but I can dream, too. I’m at present set to go on a journey. There is a man with a red eye that has had a bullet chasing his head for many years now. At present this bullet is only inching forward, as h...

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“Sticky” by Scott Jacobs

“Quick! It’s back on!” Eddy kicked down the bathroom door from within its belly and stormed, unwashed hands and all, through the labyrinth of salted peanuts and Sour Patch Kids and Oakley potato chips–a regional favorite–and dove over the counter. The cowboy, Lancaster, is in a shootout with Redeye, a vigilante who’d long ago taken a bullet to the eye and lived, his eye turning a brilliant red in the process. Lancaster alternates between clutching at the bullet hole in his thigh and firing desperate volleys over the flipped table. Redeye...

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