Ten One-Sentence Stories
by Robert Earle
About Robert Earle
With more than sixty stories in print and online literary journals, Robert Earle is one of the most widely published short story writers in America. He also has published three novellas, two novels, and two books of nonfiction. His book reviews and topical essays appear at robertearle@wordpress.com. He has degrees in literature and writing from Princeton and Johns Hopkins and lives in Virginia after a twenty-five year career as a diplomat that took him to Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.
1. The knife sliced twice through the side of the tent and a hand yanked the girl out by the hair.
2. She struggled to find a way to talk him out of it, demanding, persuading, coaxing, pleading, begging.
3. Who would have thought the goo spilling out of her belly wouldn’t go back where it belonged?
4. Suddenly she felt nothing, making this easy.
5. It wasn't a question of loss of memory but too much memory telescoping into an instant.
6. In the starless black night, the campers lost faith in everything they’d bravely said when the fire still burned.
6. Their crying and calling and stamping on the ground fed into a cataract of despair.
7. "Believe me, I could have predicted this” rattled like seeds in a dried-out gourd.
8. Now that they could see through the spiderweb of dawn glimmering in the forest no one wanted to break a single strand.
8. Fear filled their jeans like rivulets of piss.
9. They couldn’t feel their feet, so how could they keep walking?
10. Oh, God, there she is!