The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men

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The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men Page 21

by Randy F. Nelson


  “Yeah, well … it got a little tricky.”

  “They’re looking for you about as hard as they’re looking for Henley.” The trooper turns and regards the ragged furrow in the snow leading back up the side of the mountain. “You find anything?”

  “Yeah. Rocks and snow.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “Rifken? We split up about an hour ago. I came over the top; he’s working his way around the ridge.”

  “I’d call in if I was you. Anyhow, I’m headed up to the roadblock on 321. You need anything?”

  “No,” says Hargadon. “We’re headed in.”

  The trooper steps through the just-softening snow to his car and guns the engine before driving away. Hargadon follows with his eyes, noticing how the slush holds the impression of the tires and how the sun has found one or two patches of asphalt. The windows of the patrol car glisten as it recedes, and the engine fades to a soft purr, and then to nothing. There is only a clean, cold rush from the valley. As the car disappears around the last curve, Hargadon takes a long draft of pure mountain air and lets his eyes wander from the road. Up to the stand of hemlocks where he sees white movement, a bent branch, and a cascade of snow. Like a great white owl taking flight.

  The Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction

  David Walton, Evening Out

  Leigh Allison Wilson, From the Bottom Up

  Sandra Thompson, Close-Ups

  Susan Neville, The Invention of Flight

  Mary Hood, How Far She Went

  François Camoin, Why Men Are Afraid of Women

  Molly Giles, Rough Translations

  Daniel Curley, Living with Snakes

  Peter Meinke, The Piano Tuner

  Tony Ardizzone, The Evening News

  Salvatore La Puma, The Boys of Bensonhurst

  Melissa Pritchard, Spirit Seizures

  Philip F. Deaver, Silent Retreats

  Gail Galloway Adams, The Purchase of Order

  Carole L. Glickfeld, Useful Gifts

  Antonya Nelson, The Expendables

  Nancy Zafris, The People I Know

  Debra Monroe, The Source of Trouble

  Robert H. Abel, Ghost Traps

  T. M. McNally, Low Flying Aircraft

  Alfred DePew, The Melancholy of Departure

  Dennis Hathaway, The Consequences of Desire

  Rita Ciresi, Mother Rocket

  Dianne Nelson, A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

  Christopher McIlroy, All My Relations

  Alyce Miller, The Nature of Longing

  Carol Lee Lorenzo, Nervous Dancer

  C. M. Mayo, Sky over El Nido

  Wendy Brenner, Large Animals in Everyday Life

  Paul Rawlins, No Lie Like Love

  Harvey Grossinger, The Quarry

  Ha Jin, Under the Red Flag

  Andy Plattner, Winter Money

  Frank Soos, Unified Field Theory

  Mary Clyde, Survival Rates

  Hester Kaplan, The Edge of Marriage

  Darrell Spencer, CAUTION Men in Trees

  Robert Anderson, Ice Age

  Bill Roorbach, Big Bend

  Dana Johnson, Break Any Woman Down

  Gina Ochsner, The Necessary Grace to Fall

  Kellie Wells, Compression Scars

  Eric Shade, Eyesores

  Catherine Brady, Curled in the Bed of Love

  Ed Allen, Ate It Anyway

  Gary Fincke, Sorry I Worried You

  Barbara Sutton, The Send-Away Girl

  David Crouse, Copy Cats

  Randy F. Nelson, The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men

  Greg Downs, Spit Baths

 

 

 


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