A curated collection of hardboiled short stories to read.
By Jamie F. Bell
A biting wind scoured the stunted birches, stripping them bare. The tundra, a canvas of burnt sienna and dull gold, stretched to a horizon where the sky hung heavy and bruised. Every breath was a frosty cloud, every step a reluctant push through the deepening mud and ancient, waterlogged moss.
By Jamie F. Bell
The air in Elmwood hung thick with the damp perfume of decaying autumn leaves and the faint, unsettling whiff of desperation. Rain slicked the pavement, mirroring the dull sheen on the faces of those who seemed destined to remain, eternally caught in the slow, grinding machinery of small-town life. This was the landscape of ordinary absurdities, now punctuated by the highly exaggerated crisis of a missing municipal eyesore, and the reluctant protagonist caught in its surreal wake.
By Eva Suluk
Late 2025. A cold, windswept city street in winter. Two young adults, Alex and Corrine, sit on a grimy bench near a bus stop, bundled in worn coats. The air is thick with the smell of damp asphalt and distant, smoldering trash. The sky is a bruised purple, promising more snow, and the streetlights cast long, weak shadows.
By Jamie F. Bell
A sweltering summer afternoon in Winnipeg pressed down, the air thick with the scent of hot asphalt and distant prairie dust. Owen, hunched over a crude contraption of wires and repurposed electronics, wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, the relentless sun glaring off the grimy windowpane of his small, airless room. Outside, the city hummed with a low, oppressive drone, a constant reminder of the Consortium's watchful, quiet presence, while inside, the silence stretched, broken only by the frantic buzz of a trapped fly and the occasional crackle from his makeshift device.