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For blankety-five years Dad and his heirlooms have transitioned from chic to shabby, and now a trickle of bargain hunters clutching Penny-Savers are picking through a houseful of incongruous clothing and furniture “priced to move” on little red stickers like drops of blood with penciled numbers, the fours shaped like sailboats, the sevens slashed through as the nuns taught him. It’s Dad’s first and only downsize, a milestone as heavy as the English oak sideboard, $95 OBO you haul it. He wouldn’t hire a service or let me organize the sale, so I worry. I woke this morning from a dream of Dad pirouetting down a catwalk with his walker, doffing his toupee and catching his heels in the cuffs of his old dress pants. His price on every item is ludicrous but appropriate to the year he bought it. Of all the tongue-cluckers, one couple seems motivated, or the wife does. She’s looking for faults in the bedroom furniture while her husband stands, neck broken, scanning the titles in the bookcase. She doesn’t know what to say to Dad, so she lets him spin his yarn. He’s describing the “bedroom suit” and how he and Mom shattered the boxspring with newlywed acrobatics here in the only house they ever owned. A sly grin follows, then a chuckle, then a sob, then silence. She says “I know, I know” and touches his arm, then produces cash from a very tight purse and starts peeling off bill after bill. I don’t think she’s counting. She calls to her husband to bring the truck, then wipes her cheek and sighs and starts removing the wardrobe drawers. I watch Dad’s face to see if he’s all right. He catches my eye and winks, and fans his face with a handful of hundreds.
Original Copyright © March 01, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 06, 2026
I’m sitting at a red light falling in love with the passenger in the next car. She’s cute and small and irrepressible, but mostly hidden by the headrest, and dark and coy and mysterious and of completely indeterminate age, and smart! When she turns her head just so, contemplating her driver, I can see enough, through the tinted glass and the relentless glare of the bird-stained windshield, to know she’s curious and contemplative. A brilliant browline crowns a clear and deepset eye of sparkling darkness. I feel you judging me. Love at one car distance is every bit as legitimate as love at a distance of one breath mingling with another, near enough for our tongues to snap like wit. I’ve had the skin-on-skin sort. The varsity variety. I’m not sure it was any better. I’ll catch her eye when I pass alongside, if this maddening gridlock doesn’t unhinge me. I want to tell her this traffic is the worst since cops invented red lights to raise ticket revenues, right? I know. Observations like that should win her heart unless my heart is lying. She’ll be mine to amuse and disappoint in a minute or a mile. But first, eliminate the other driver, who doesn’t deserve or appreciate her. How’s his traffic material? Green light, finally. As our cars pull even, her driver’s head blocks her from offering me her face. To pledge in my direction. With her eyes. That I am not alone in love. Her driver will concede our love is destiny, or regret it. He moves aside, I believe, in surrender; I see her; she is stunning. The most magnificent springer spaniel, dark of brow and bright of eye, purebred of champions clearly, this one, raised from greatness for greatness, vivacious and irrepressible, age approximately three.
Original Copyright © February 10, 2000
Revised Copyright © February 06, 2026
Very Short Novels 
Thank you so much, anhinga, but I wouldn't want to try it without the other 199. —David
Why, thank you, brother. It's wonderful to see you here. :) —David
All you need is 100 words to make an emotional impact. Touching.
Brilliant, brother. Just simply brilliant.
This Very Short Novel has a strong resemblance to Simple Lessons of War from almost 20 years ago, but is…