Gary Rogers

MIDWESTERN GOTHIC IS JUST LIKE SOUTHERN GOTHIC. EXCEPT WITHOUT THE SOUTHERN; OR THE GOTHIC.

Featured Stories

Featured

Sage Harbor Cove

Apr 14, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 14, 2016 Gary Rogers

Sage Harbor Cove

Apr 14, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 14, 2016 Gary Rogers

The moonlight played in the blinds as they rattled, perturbed by the breeze. Her hair looked black in the dim light, a glorious mop of frazzles that mirrored her mind, her worry, that she hid so well. She was different when Angus wasn’t there to impress. None of us are our true selves for anyone I suppose. We’re all many facets. Who we show the different ones to reflects on us.

Apr 14, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 14, 2016 Gary Rogers

Wrenches We Leave Behind

Apr 13, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 13, 2016 Gary Rogers

Wrenches We Leave Behind

Apr 13, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 13, 2016 Gary Rogers

I never look down anymore, or up. Both seem impossible goals. Just keep working, patching, pounding, fixing this thin ribbon of metal that disappears down into the blue, up into the stars. Find the holes. Find the craters. Find the places where the void tries to get in.

Apr 13, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 13, 2016 Gary Rogers

Dan Good Bar-B-Q

Apr 12, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 12, 2016 Gary Rogers

Dan Good Bar-B-Q

Apr 12, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 12, 2016 Gary Rogers

Young men orbit women, stuck there circling, long after it’s obvious they’ll never fall into them. Sometimes older men do too.

Apr 12, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 12, 2016 Gary Rogers

Falling Into The Blue

Apr 11, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 11, 2016 Gary Rogers

Falling Into The Blue

Apr 11, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 11, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 11, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 11, 2016 Gary Rogers

The Glass Doorknob

Apr 8, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 8, 2016 Gary Rogers

The Glass Doorknob

Apr 8, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 8, 2016 Gary Rogers

My grandmothers house has the most exquisite glass doorknobs. Maybe they’re crystal. Octagonal diamonds, set in patina crusted brass, they imbue grandma’s house with a sense of tired elegance. They expose how much we’ve lost over the years. Deco declined, meandering to mundane until the only sense of whimsey we find is downloaded in an app.

Apr 8, 2016 Gary Rogers

Apr 8, 2016 Gary Rogers

Dowager Trudeau and the Miracle Coffeeshop

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Dowager Trudeau and the Miracle Coffeeshop

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

It takes a movement of Heaven, if not Earth, to change the course of a stubborn Trudeau. Rene had plenty of experience moving earth, it was the Heaven that he’d never quite managed with his mother. In the end, Rene did buy the house; as an investment he said. It sat at the end of Lafayette Avenue, a quiet testament to his defeat.

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

The Jokinen Twins

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

The Jokinen Twins

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

On the subject of eggs — those fit for throwing at houses — there are no finer experts on the matter in Frank, Iowa, than Oliver and Bret Jokinen. The Jokinen twins are egg connoisseurs. They can spot bad eggs sauntering through the alley behind Lion’s Grocery. Doubtless, they are able to see self-evident qualities in the white (or brown, Elvis Lion started bringing in brown eggs when several members of the Ladies Auxiliary started asking after ‘organic’ foods) semi-orbs, even when they are buried under cardboard and paper, and all manners of subterfuge Elvis devises to keep the bad eggs out if their hands.

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Frank Gary Rogers

On A Blanket, Under The Stars

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

On A Blanket, Under The Stars

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

“They had foot-long hotdogs,” she remembered. “You ate three, all with ketchup and mustard.” I relished the disdain in her voice. Ketchup had no place on the same county as a hotdog. I ate them all like that, just to get a rise out of her. I still do, all these years later.

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Please

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

My fingers caught in her hair, a mind of their own, gently combing the silky strands, cool to the touch. We lay there, silent for a moment, a minute, an eternity. She hadn’t fallen asleep, though maybe I had; she’d just fallen silent.

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Dylan

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Those old airports have a smell. Weeping concrete, antiseptic, old carpet that lived past its lifetime, and its lifetime’s lifetime. The government subsidized them, after the war, when airports were alternate airbases; for when the Russians nuked the real ones.

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

Mar 25, 2016 Gary Rogers

About

Gary Rogers is an amateur writer living in Iowa. Occasionally he writes about himself in the third person. This is normal for writers. Really. Completely normal.