Mark Gagnon
Bio
My life has been spent traveling here and abroad. Now it's time to write.
I have three published books: Mitigating Circumstances, Short Stories for Open Minds, and Short Stories from an Untethered Mind. Unmitigated Greed is do out soon.
Achievements (1)
Stories (457)
Filter by community
What If?
A beam of sunlight entered his room, turning the wall opposite the window a soft gold. It was the only bright light in the otherwise subdued hospice room. The old man in the hospital bed watched the beam flicker as the fluttering curtains crossed in front of it, creating a change in hues and shapes on the wall. The sight was a pleasant distraction from the constant beeping of the machines stationed next to his bed. He had always enjoyed the sun’s rays bouncing from object to object, casting shadows on some and presenting others in stark detail. What if this would be the last time he saw the sun?
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
Spirit of the Eagle
Chapter 1 Early evening, Max’s favorite time of day, the 15-year-old stood at the edge of a forested piece of land next to his family’s farm and watched as the moon crested the horizon. The orb was a source of wonder to him, its size and shape, changing with the passing of each night. Although he knew this happened because the Earth’s shadow was passing over the moon’s surface, it still fascinated him.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
Cyclops
Two FBI agents stared down at the mutilated corpse. It was the middle of the Great Depression, so finding a body in a rail yard was not an uncommon occurrence. Finding three engineers’ bodies, each in a different rail yard, in three different states, and all displaying the same wounds was. The cause of death for each man was a stab wound directly into the heart. The left eye had been removed postmortem, and a cat’s eye marble inserted into the empty socket. The coup de grâce was the word Cyclops written across each victim’s forehead in their own blood.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
Room With A View
I travel a lot for work and usually stay at one of the major hotel chains. Their rooms are normally clean, beds comfortable, and the interior walls soundproof enough that if the person next door sneezes, I don’t feel compelled to say, “Bless you.” Unfortunately, none was available for this trip.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Horror
XXI
XXI Humans, just look at them, each involved in their own little world; oblivious to everything around them, including me. I was human once, but I’ve strengthened into something more, greater, superior to what I once was. Now I look at these creatures as a wolf looks at a rabbit, or a cheetah at a gazelle. They are nothing more than prey. My quarry has unwittingly wandered within the boundaries of my hunting grounds at the end of Canal Street. The elevated railway line casts a perpetual shadow onto the pedestrian walkway below, obscuring sunlight during the day and blocking the glow from the city’s lights at night; it’s a predator’s paradise. Now I must choose my evening’s entertainment.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Horror
Revelation
I can’t remember a time when Maddie wasn’t in my life. We met as toddlers, our parents were next-door neighbors, and we spent almost every day playing together. Many children drift apart once they start school, but not Maddie and me. We attended the same grammar school, had the same teachers, and helped each other with homework. Inseparable, joined at the hip, two peas in a pod and all those other tired clichés were used to describe us by the adults. That’s how it was right up to the day her father got promoted and the family moved to another state.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Futurism
Survival Sense
Some places just put my internal alarm systems on active standby. Alma Latinas was just such a place. Sure, I’d visited this cantina before with several friends, but never alone. Actually, Gringos never visit this part of Nuevo Laredo alone, and I know this, so what the hell am I doing here? When you’re twenty and bulletproof, in your mind anyway, no place is off limits.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
Talk Radio 1905
I started the company van the other day and was immediately greeted by a bombastic baritone voice booming from the radio. I’m not sure who the speaker was because, to me, they all sound alike. It doesn’t matter if it’s politics or sports, I never listen to talk radio. I want to hear music when I turn on the box, not someone proselytizing.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in The Swamp
Parallel Lines
It is strange how the mind can play tricks. When I stare down the tracks I’m standing on, I could swear the left and right ribbons of steel join as one at the horizon. Of course, the logical part of my brain tells me such a thing is impossible, but could it be that just this once my eyes aren’t betraying me? Are the mathematical laws of the universe always unwavering? In my life, I have observed other constants abruptly evaporate, allowing random chaos to rule, so why shouldn’t parallel lines meet somewhere in the distance?
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
Stan's Reality-Altered
Stan, a 55-year-old traveling sales agent, is a Bostonian through and through. The Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins are the only teams worth rooting for. In Stan’s world, change can never be a good thing. His third-floor walkup apartment is the same one he and a fellow student originally rented while attending Suffolk University 35 years ago. The roommate moved on; Stan never did. Why leave a place that feels as comfortable to him as an old pair of jeans?
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Horror
Happy Birthday Mikey
Chance brought the three together, friendship, formed a spiritual bond that would last throughout their lives. Dan, the son of a Boston factory worker; Mikey, whose family were Cajun shrimpers from Louisiana; and Luis, a first-generation American from California, met at the Army’s AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) school. Even though they hailed from different parts of the country, the trio shared many similarities, including the same birthday. The primary goal the three shared was to create a better life for themselves and their families, and if the road to accomplishing that goal wound its way through the jungles of Vietnam, then so be it.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
Choices
A teenager, wearing his father’s oversized coat to shield him from the chilly night wind, strode purposefully toward the market. Many of the neighborhood bodegas had closed because of the pandemic, but this one survived. He had limited funds to purchase enough food for himself and his younger sister. The siblings were just two of a growing number of recent orphans produced by COVID-19. He decided that being placed in the welfare system was unacceptable, and he would do everything possible to keep that from happening.
By Mark Gagnon4 years ago in Fiction
