Small Town, Paradise. Green yards and clean air and split-level houses. A post office, a police station, a grocery store, five bars and a set of stoplights. Autumn in the afternoon and summer in the evening, and every evening a new episode of Financially Stable and Moderately Happy Family.

Jim watched from up the road as a man mowed his lawn. The lawn was lush and smooth, already clipped to quarter-inch perfection, and still the man mowed over it. He marched back and forth over his square of grass for half an hour before cutting the engine, putting the mower in his garage, and entering his house.

Jim waited five minutes then knocked on the door. The man answered with a beer in his hand.

“I was wondering when you’d come around,” the man said. Continue reading “Cool Cogito, Bro [Jim #13, Short Fiction]” →