![The Chaos & Fog of Glendington [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/pexels-photo-35317730.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
The day began with the kind of thick grey fog that made walking dangerous, but it was his routine, even on ...
Category: short stories
I was not a reader growing up, I preferred drawing. But sometime during high school my imagination grew beyond my drawing skills and I started experimenting with writing. First I tried a bit of poetry (that would later turn to songwriting) and then short stories. In college, in my English classes I got a chance to play a bit in this area. This collection goes back to those days.
![Two Old Rugs Survive Their Trip Outside [a short story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/baseball-on-rug.png?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
baseball bat on rug
I woke up thinking about an old rug, it kind of looks like it’s being hung up to be ...
![Dee, Friendships & The Delayed Departure/Dismissal [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/pexels-photo-9887430.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
Friendships seemed simpler in the past. In the third grade I noticed this blonde kid on the bus ride home who was ...
![Running Around In The Park [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/pexels-photo-8083430.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
They do so much with so little. A little girl, her shoes in one hand and purple plastic bowling pin in the other, ...
![Older Fellow Attempts Modern Dating [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2001-03-27-Sunset-at-Santa-Monica.jpg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
He couldn’t remember the last time he found himself taking a leisurely evening stroll on Ocean Front in Newport. ...
![Didn’t Know To Not Expose the Container to De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/pexels-photo-15509863.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
The original records were lost or at least never found about how the university ended up with a small glass ...
![The Last Runner, The Crowd and Caught Being Human [a Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2007-12-15-6th-grader-boys-880-race-19.png?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
One of the under-appreciated duties as the teacher of the yearbook class was covering Saturday morning track ...
![There’s a Whole in My Life [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Not-Full-By-Choice-no-attribution.png?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
10:51 PM. Just a note or two before I drift off to sleep. I wish there was some meaningful way of summing up the ...
![Three Rectangular Tiles in the Park [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/pexels-photo-286263.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
Three ceramic rectangular tiles were laying in a suburban public park in a spot about halfway from the street to ...
Prying loose thoughts that just don't want to come, finding excuses and distractions along the way, hoping against ...
![The Kid and The Lime Green Buddha Named Bart [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/pexels-photo-11356284.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
A little nine-year old boy was found in his suburban home, apparently abandoned by his parents, who themselves ...
![Three AM at The Beach, Remembering the First Love That Wasn’t [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/pexels-photo-7181902.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
This is an intimate place. I wish that I would have come here before. Had I known about it, I'm sure I would have. ...
Some things are better left to imagination. A chance encounter, a sly smile, a brief scent of perfume, why ruin ...
![Fall Out From Unexpected Handholding in Aerobics Class [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pexels-photo-32627101.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
It was my ex’s idea that we join a gym. It’s not my fault that I lost all the weight and really got into the whole ...
![Fate & Saturdays Working with Dad [Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/25741-Cervantes-MV-2.png?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
No matter what I did, I never seemed to be able to escape my fate. As soon as I finished breakfast I’d hear, ...
![Questions At the Edge of a Stream of Lights [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pexels-photo-9548515.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
Her apartment complex sits just beyond the edge of the river of lights. Just beyond the incessant procession of ...
![The Traveler & His Accidental Life [A Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pexels-photo-356040.jpeg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
All of this happened because she looked at him and he noticed. Normally it was so noisy and busy on the factory ...
![Incomplete Beings [Short Story]](https://i0.wp.com/josephbrucebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2011-09-04-sunset-cruise-211.jpg?resize=400%2C284&ssl=1)
Intro: This week my short story group assignment was to write about a "real life" incident, so I re-edited a ...
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