Eric J. Smith crams atmosphere, characterization, and plot into each of these short, short stories. Characters leap from the pages to impart their twisted tales before colliding with the author’s dark-humored punch lines. If these stripped-down vignettes have anything in common, it’s fading tattoos, excessive drinking and smoking, hopeless attempts at communication, unexpected violence, and untimely death–not to mention coffee, steak, and eggs.

Some examples:

• An unknown narrator delivers a bitter-sweet eulogy of a woman he hasn’t seen for forty years

• An unexpected meeting reveals the soul of Thanksgiving

• A bucolic picnic erupts in lethal violence as unhinged strangers intrude

• Police roughly interrogate a young man concerning his father’s disappearance

• A group of toughs demands that an elderly man surrender his truck

• A man’s shoes provoke derision from everyone he meets

• A high school girl embarks uncertainly and alone to begin a new life

• A loser with an anger problem clashes with a rent-a-cop in a jewelry store

Don’t miss this collection of fine short yarns by Eric J. Smith. The stories will keep you glued to your seat. The short fiction on display in this latest collection has been judged highly commended in annual flash fiction competitions three years in a row: 2014-2016.