short fiction
Seldom is a full work of fiction like The Last Man To Die the first piece written by an author. In almost all cases, it follows many other short pieces.
These are a few of those earlier works; short stories ranging from science fiction to war stories. Chose one or more, and click the button to receive a pdf.
CARBON
A COMPLETE SHORT STORY
He was a quiet man, walking past the church as the bells rang each morning to catch the bus to his job, and returning each evening to the diner before retiring to his sparse apartment. Some thought him simple. Most thought of him not at all. But Carbon had a sharp mind for puzzles.
WHY ME?
SCIENCE FICTION
“There are ten dimensions, the three in our shared universe and seven more. Most are extremely small but they are very close together and touch all of the other dimensions. We move into the largest of the seven and then use the other six as doors into the location and time we desire, at a place that may be far from the origin.”
GHOST MAN
WAR STORY
A Vietnam soldier's story:
“I had a special talent that was very useful and sometimes intensely disgusting. I had crawled through miles of jungle and had never been detected. I trained guys like Collins to move with great stealth to back me up.”
honor killing
MILITARY SHORT
A Navy SEAL and his ISIS counterpart discuss their honor codes in order to decide which of them should kill the other.
pawns
SONNET FOR A SOLDIER
First published in SONNETS, April 1967
Under the pen name Robert Bernard
Cuyahoga Falls High School, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Updated and re-edited in August 2019
ESCAPE
CONCENTRATION CAMP SHORT
When a prisoner in a WWII concentration camp is liberated, he finds a pistol next to a dead German soldier.