Author: DL Shirey

DL Shirey writes from Portland, Oregon, where it's probably raining. His short stories and non-fiction appear in over 60 publications, including including Confingo, Page & Spine, Zetetic and Wild Musette. You can find more of his writing at www.dlshirey.com and @dlshirey on Twitter.
Published

Monocle is for M

Posted on by DL Shirey

MonoclePublished June 23, 2016
in Pound of Flash (no longer available). This flash piece is a study of two characters, the monocle and the man who wears it. The story is the result of a writing class assignment: choose an article of clothing and make it central to the tale.

Monocle is for M

by DL Shirey

The little bell tinkles a half-tone brighter when Maximilian walks in. He dresses like an English gent, but he is not English. Nor is he wearing the monocle when he enters the tea shop. As if flourishing a cape, he strolls with dramatic, elongated arm swings aside his lengthy strides. He has no cape, but the finely-tailored suit would look so-much-the-better if he had. His crisp shirts are monogrammed on the pocket, an M bookended by fleurs-de-lis. There’s even a special pocket in the pocket for the monocle.

Ask him his name and he’ll answer it fully, neither Max or Maxi. Friends may call him M, yet he’s never brought a friend to the tea shop. He leaves with one quite often.

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Non-fiction, Published

On The Nose

Posted on by DL Shirey

nose

 

Published January 9, 2016 in
Wraparound South
This is a personal essay about the day skin cancer was removed from my nose. It is quite funny, not preachy or morose. What was it George Bernard Shaw said? “If you tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ ll kill you.”

On The Nose

by DL Shirey

In high school health class they called it the Triangle of Death, part of the educational philosophy to increase learning retention by overdramatizing worst-case scenarios. Whether it was that memorable label or the photo in the textbook, the angst was enough to make my face break out. The book showed a pretty teenage girl with a red polygon superimposed on the center of her face. The bottom points aligned to the corners of her mouth, the top of the triangle at the bridge of the nose, smack between the eyebrows. It was red for a reason; no popping of pimples or pulling of nose hairs, we were told, should take place in this danger zone. It’s where blood vessels, nasal passages and tooth roots jumble their wires together, and three senses–taste, smell and sight–all have major ports of call. Here, physiologies collide, the continental plates of anatomy meeting at one’s own, personal San Andreas fault, just offshore the brain. One tiny infection or a little internal bleeding and BANG, instant coma.

So what’s worse, 30 years of triangulated anxiety or getting skin cancer there?

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Published

The Middle Box

Posted on by DL Shirey

Hatchet

Published November, 2015 in
Literary Hatchet, Issue 13
Small publishers help many writers to appear in print, often without turning a profit. Please support this publisher and purchase this volume. Since the first rights have now expired, the story is also printed below.

There was no true inspiration for this piece other than the length some people will go to maintain their appearance. This is a story about a man who truly enjoys his work.

 

The Middle Box

by DL Shirey

A trick of light. The wafer-thin disk spins, a mirror dangling from a silver chain, reflecting the chocolate-brown iris back into her pretty, pretty eyes. The left one, now the right.

“Concentrate on the color,” I say to the woman, none of that your-eyes-are-heavy or you’re-getting-sleepy nonsense.

The spinning pendant does not make her mind relax, nor the pendulum from one eye to the other. It’s the mirror and the vanity of seeing oneself, even for a brief moment. Appearing for an instant, then spinning away; reflected again, and gone; there, not there.

Her lids flicker and fall, breath evens out. She is asleep at the hands of a perfect stranger.

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