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 (451)
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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
