“Oh and One” by Joseph Hirsch
POETRY: “Unburdened of victory, and with it, expectation….”
Read More “Oh and One” by Joseph HirschRetreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon
Noir, crime, and mystery short stories, scholarship, and so much more
POETRY: “Unburdened of victory, and with it, expectation….”
Read More “Oh and One” by Joseph HirschThe sergeant of the watch…stumbled onto the once-enchanted house…. We pulled up at the oxbow bend in the driveway paved with crushed sugar shards. The officers secured the crime scene, unspooling yellow tape between candy canes large as lamp standards. I lit a cigar to cover the smell of death and gingerbread. “What do we […]
Read More “Death and Gingerbread” by Joseph HirschBut I needed the teen to be alive…. Why, then, was this balm for my soul’s remainder? By which I mean, to watch a movie from 1957 on a computer screen at 3 a.m.? The shaggy monster creeping like a dirty Labrador draped in a pile of shag carpets making slow progress toward the chrome […]
Read More “Wikipedian Was” by Joseph HirschHe must have sensed her blonde came from a bottle…. and that his parents were liars, too. He met her as a child which somehow seems a waste, a thwarted prepubescent prank played by a horndog demigod. His head only came up to the curve of her oft-measured breasts, and when he peeked, he was […]
Read More “My Father Met Jayne Mansfield” by Joseph HirschThis was Ant’s first time in Ohio, and he wasn’t impressed. Pennsylvania, he knew from the Poconos, but this was pure boondocks. The sticks. His passenger, Carmine, didn’t seem to like it either. The morning sun came rushing through the tinted windshield of the rental car, and Carmine spoke while playing with the rounds in […]
Read More “Much Worse Ways” by Joseph HirschThe myth is that the knight fights the Dragon. The truth is that the Dragon teaches men to breathe fire, Obviating the need for knights. Taking this time machine to Brooklyn now, think of Poor Roy Luck and life against him. No, he wasn’t cross-eyed But other than that, he was fat, small, and bullnecked […]
Read More “Poor Roy’s Picaresque” by Joseph Hirsch1. Order of the Purple Heart It was just like the bastard to not tell me he was in town for all this time, and to wait until something serious happened before he got in touch with me. I don’t know how he got my cell number, but he called me at work, while I […]
Read More “Bail, and Other Bonds” by Joseph Hirsch