Weekenders Magazine

I received some great news this weekend.  Ryan Swofford with Weekenders Magazine (an online literary periodical) emailed to tell me that they have selected my short story VACANT STARE to appear in an upcoming issue.  The issue will be available to read on their website on November 15th. 

Here's a link to their site:  The Weekenders Magazine

I'm very excited to be included on this project and to get in on a new issue this early in their fledgling career as a blog magazine.  Below, you'll find an excerpt from my short story and I hope you enjoy it.

VACANT STARE

by Joshua Schwartzkopf

The boy with rust-colored hair sat on the blue and white checkered couch overlooking the street.  It was a throw away couch that no garbage man had ever come to pick up.  He stared into the distance, not looking at the elaborate two-story houses across the way..  He saw everything and yet he saw nothing.

A vacant expression on his youthful face made him seem as if he were in some sort of trance.  Those who walked by just thought he was on drugs, "probably suffering from Autism" one woman commented as she scurried past with her power-walking partner.  The sound of her spandex covered thighs created a distinct "phht phht" noise.

Yet, still he sat there in front of the white house with the red "For Sale" sign planted off to one side..  A narrow sidewalk led up to the spindly, grey front porch.  His head tilted to the right as he stared into the space ahead.  He blinked now and then but otherwise he could have been a robot or Pinocchio.

I sat there watching him and wondered why he was there.  Had some tragedy befallen this boy?  Had his parents divorced and were they now moving out of his childhood home?  So many questions filled my mind as I sat in my cozy office, trying to finish the great American novel.  I just needed to write the perfect ending, the final sentence to leave the reader with some closure to my story.  But I hadn't gotten much farther than a single "The" on the glowing monitor.

I looked down at the black keyboard resting on the khaki colored desk.  My fingers poised over the A,S,D,F keys on the left and the J,K,L,semi-colon keys on the right.  My thumbs rested ever so gently on the space bar at the bottom of the keyboard.  The whir of the computer filled the otherwise silent office.  Pictures littered the tiered levels of the computer desk, pictures of family gatherings and of my wife.

(Read the rest here)