Mark Williams

Mark Williams’ fiction has appeared in "The Write Launch,” "The Baffler," "Eclectica," "Cleaver," "The Main Street Rag," “Valparaiso Fiction Review,” and other journals and anthologies. His poems have appeared in "The Write Launch,” “The Southern Review," "Rattle," "Nimrod," “One Art,” and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collection, “Carrying On.” He lives in Evansville, Indiana.

Out of the Cradle, No Longer Rocking

One winter afternoon, Nick Miracle walked out of Perk Up Coffee with a caramel ribbon crunch latte, his drink of choice on special occasions. For the past five years, he had been a junior loan officer at Wabash River Bank. Beginning tomorrow, he would manage its Honey Creek branch.

The Rubicon

Spring semester, my senior year of college, I won Jenny Muller in a game of Trivial Pursuit. The winning question was, What Native American tribe assisted the Corps of Discovery through the winter of 1804–1805? I couldn’t believe my luck. With the question or the prize.

Ixmoja

In high school, my friends played trumpets, French horns, trombones, and Risk—conquering make-believe continents while desiring real girls. We spoke on speech teams, competed on chess teams, sang in glee clubs and choirs. Popular boys played football and shot hoops. My friends and I studied Latin. One day I made the mistake of telling fellow trumpeter, Nolan Niemeyer, why I couldn’t practice with him on Saturday morning.

“Fred’s Theory of Relativity” and “Heaven’s Rules”

“Stupid is as stupid does,” said Forest Gump. So true.
Like the time nine-year-old me, batting eighth,
squared around to bunt and took a Larry Broerman
fastball in the groin that dropped me to the ground,
where the coaches and umps huddled around
and unbuttoned my pants so I could breathe.
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