Todd Johnson

“Season's Greetings from U.S. Route 395 ” by Todd Johnson

Submitted to Contest #209

Darkness pursued us from the south like a helicopter, its blades rotating, tearing light from the sky in shreds as storm clouds hunched over the road. Reno’s neon stain receded behind us, and the bulge of US 395 propelled me ever closer to my birthplace, to Susanville.“—and when Jesus said: ‘Lazarus, come forth,’ the dead man rose!” My father slid his palms from the steering wheel and raised them, upturned and splayed wide as if supporting the weight of two massive hanging breasts. He studied my face a moment before urging: “You see?”I nodde...

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“The Curve of the Bell” by Todd Johnson

1One hour remained until my flight left LAX for Reno, pressed between Nevada’s scorched air and sediment. Leaning in from the security checks and storefronts, Christmas lights spilled their synthetic glow across the crowded airport terminal, and I heard the cold first notes of “O Holy Night” seeping out of the speaker system. After locating my boarding gate and confirming the departure time, I decided to pass the interval with breakfast.Despite the multitude of holiday travelers shooting past me, The Flying Egg was almost deserted. I ascende...

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“For After Your Little Blue Heart Explodes” by Todd Johnson

Submitted to Contest #150

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,The sheep is in the meadow, the cow is in the corn,Where is that boy who looks after the sheep?“Lying in the cornfield,” he mumbles, head mashed against the stall door in the men’s room of the Brown Bear Bar & Grill, “fast asleep.”But the boy hadn’t been asleep, and Russell was forced to accept this fact the moment he found his son, Sawyer, sprawled face down in the spongy earth.It was 2034. His wife Moni was in town getting her dirty-blonde hair permed and nails lacquered in creamsicle orange, and Ru...

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“Sundown at D'oro Pizzeria” by Todd Johnson

Submitted to Contest #149

CHARLES EDGRET / PART ONE He lifts his head as the neon signs flicker and smear their chemical glow across the windows of D’oro Pizzeria, deleting the last data of light scrolling off the setting sun. From where he stands behind the cash register, Charles Edgret can see the advertisement he had made that very weekend, carefully printing the letters in alternating black, green and white on a square of orange poster board—a bold choice that color, but he felt the bright, cheery shade was more impressive, more inviting, more apt to catch the ...

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“The Corridors” by Todd Johnson

Submitted to Contest #148

1 I had been living and working full-time in The Corridors for twenty years and seven months when the dead body was discovered. It was a summer morning, the last Monday in July, the 6am sun already mutating the clouds into tattered cords of red like ripped-apart musculature and twisting them across the sky. The weekend had, by The Corridors’ standards, proved to be uneventful, with only three noise complaints on Saturday night which I ignored completely and our sole robotic resident Dwayne 2000-XL7-B5 hammering on my front door on Sunda...

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