All My Short Stories in One Place

Steve B Howard NOVELIST

6 min readMay 29, 2019

I’ve been on Medium since 2017 and have over 900 poems, stories, and articles posted and published here. I thought things were getting a little unruly, so I decided to organize them (sort of). Enjoy!

*Eventually I will get around to doing this for my poetry, non-fiction, haibun, ect.

Slipping Satori

Drowning and dumbfounded you round the corner and stare at your shattered existence. The gates of Shobuji, the Zen…

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Jackey’s Mafia Pizza

The rumor was that he was a wizard at starting up restaurants and nightclubs. But once they were up and banging then he…

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A Conclusion Or Just A Cowardly Run For It?

I’m years out of high school. It’s midday in July. I’m sticking to the black cloth seat of my car in the far right…

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I Blame it on Tom Cruise

I blame my obsession on Tom Cruise. But this isn’t about Thetans, Nicole Kidman, or Oprah’s couch dance. And to be…

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The Gangster Wannabes Get Roofed

Our Northern California neighborhood was white bread boring up until the late 80’s. Situated in a mostly a blue collar…

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The VW Speed Collectors

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It is almost too fast to understand. I’m in the parking lot of a Target Store in San…

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Two Times Gunning and a Shotgun with Tacos

Gun Number One

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The Death of Jeff Spicoli and the Rise of the Surf Punks

The End of Jeff Spicoli and the Rise of the Surf Punks

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The Illegal Immigrant Song

It is a narrow two lane road littered with potholes that runs in a straight line for about two miles between to massive…

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Concord Ave Car Crashes

The screaming big block V8 rattled the windows on my Trans Am. The candy apple blue Chevelle sat in the right lane next…

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The Dirt Tribe

This is a culture of dirt, dust, grease, sweat, complicated unforgiving machines, hangovers, and that terrifying cough…

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Slaughter Slough

The Sea Doo we are riding is considered relatively slow in jet ski circles. It was designed to hold three people and…

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Satan’s Keg Party

There is a lot of standing around and waiting. Me and about two dozen other teens are in the middle of an abandoned…

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I’ll Burn the Pain Out of You Baby

Every disgusting stain on those six tatami I can trace back to his giant fat ex-Sumo ass drinking himself unconscious…

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Beyond the Break Lie My Broken Dreams

He paddles out of the calm marina into the dark open ocean chop that chills him despite his thick wet suit. His long…

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K2 is a Bitch I Can’t Skate

“Fucking California. Should never gone. Improve English, get life experience, meet the pretty girl, and skate, they say…

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Unfurled Ego

Remember you are the instructor, and therefore superior in intellect, control them.” I have heard this year’s freshman…

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Dropped Trust

“I fake it so real I am beyond fake.” Doll Parts-Hole

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The Tree Wizards

Texas, in all her flatness, was now our new home. But there were surprises. The little pink rambler was squat and…

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Algorithms of a Break Up

I’ve attempted to re-create it, if that’s the correct word. I’m not sure about the terminology. I mean, I’m trying to…

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Blood Stains in the Red Dust

I walked past the well through the dusty red streets of Gulu Town head down and my spirit heavy in the weak morning…

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The Naked Surf

Harvey stood on the cold winter beach in Northern California, white longboard pointing to the sky and bare ass pointing…

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Brutal Are the Streets My Brother

Jesus, you fuck, Benny, Bogey thought. You had to just up and die on me here in this shit hole.

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Bad Beer O’Clock

A short trip really for one not long for this world or into deep philosophical ponderings. Just a left out of the…

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Hapsley The Bird Hunter

The music throbbed, then pounded, then backfired into some sort of Indian Techno Disco hybrid. It was deceptively black…

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Bone Splinters and Booze

Old Zenard used to say, “Never throw a damn punch when your so tanked you’re seeing double, Too numb to feel the…

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Wash Your Hands of Her With Toxins

The first clue was her use of “chan” instead of “san” or even “sama” considering the circumstances. Japanese social…

theweeklyknob.com

Fishing for Freedom and Catching Hell

I can feel the sun baking my skin. They call this the “white city” because of all the industrial gray buildings and…

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My Friend the Buddha at Four Years Old

I can feel them pulling on me. One pulls from the ground and the other pulls from the sky. I don’t know why they are in…

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The Retro-Junky’s Hard Burn

(my first attempt at Cyberpunk)

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The Things You Ran From

The summer comes, high school ends, but you don’t notice. The flash of a gun, cryptic hand signals exchanged, and the…

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The Big L

Remember that night well, clear as a spring sunrise in Montana. Slim kept buying ’em until I was under the table. Woke…

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M.A.R.S.H.A

“Six fingers? You must be mistaken Mrs. Landers. I did the Pre-Gen diagnostics myself and there were no indications…

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The Trash of Kindness Can’t be Carried

I see her making her way slowly down the two flights of concrete stairs. Her back is hunched and knotted fingers claw…

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Your Third Eye is Showing

It is mid-evening when we finally leave the meditation hall. The half moon is already high in the Melbourne sky. The…

crossingenres.com

Purpose?

The Artist

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The Divine Director Loses His Shit

He looked again at the text message glaring across the screen and he felt the rage and wrath rising in him. “Yahweh!”…

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Bukowski’s Bastard

I don’t know if he was really as mean as he made himself out to be. Certainly his scared up face and knuckles and the…

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The Beanie Baby Murder

The green filth had grown over the grate and locked his memory away from this street. Homelessness was punishable by…

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Fearing Santana

This is the story of Santana the Rooster’s triumph. It is not the greatest story I could tell or the most dangerous. It…

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Face in the Fog

Heavy smoke from the artillery fire and burning buildings has left only little windows of clear space to aim my camera…

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Half Hearted

Roughly fifteen miles into the trip, heading towards the backside of Seattle, he said, “Take 509, it’ll be faster.” And…

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The Broad Brush Suicide

I remember my granddaddy saying, “Austin, boy every generation needs a war to define itself. This one’s yours. You go…

theweeklyknob.com

An Emperor’s Request

On August 15th following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Emperor asked Japan to endure the unendurable. Ten…

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Don’t Die Over A Spilled Martini

There was nothing celebratory about that New Year’s Eve. Nirvana was playing at the Cow Palace, but neither of us had…

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Dialing for Derelict Homes

In the mid-70’s as a kid I lived about 30 miles southeast of Seattle. In those days the little town I lived in was…

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Fruitless is the Family Hate

I remember first hearing my grandfather use the word in 1985 when I was four and half. We were at a local burger joint…

theweeklyknob.com

Trout Streams, Motion, and Memories

The desert of Eastern Washington is a place of dryness and death. Without water nothing can live here. The thin little…

crossingenres.com

A Change of Dreams

The air was different. Painfully clean, but not sterile. So unlike the dry stagnant air of downtown Los Angles, always…

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Out of Kindness

The camping trip was their idea. It was always their idea. Ever since I can remember my life was their idea. The…

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The Blood of Water

The heavy cedar door with the rounded top sagged a little in its frame. Long years of facing tough, salty winter winds…

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Test Flights

Harold had labored in the same job, the same diesel grime and oil, for thirty-six years. Today he would retire. His…

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Shoe Horned

I rolled out from under my newspapers and cardboard tent thinking maybe today I could paint the changes into my life…

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Aspiration, Obsession, Disintegration

Meditation Journal: Questions always arise. “Is my breathing too fast? Is it too slow? Am I hyperventilating? Why are…

thecreative.cafe

Darwinism in Hot Pants

Darwinism in Hot Pantsthecreative.cafe