1918 6 4
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I wanted my sister to not be in that box. I wanted my parents to laugh again. I wanted my friends to actually be my friends and not call me hurtful names behind my back. I wanted my awful cousin to have never come into my room in the middle of the night. I…
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19181510
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On the birthday before he started school, he received a pencil case from his paternal grandparents. The violet, oblong pouch contained a pencil and a pencil sharpener in the same color. He didn't remember what had happened with the pencil or the sharpener, but he had…
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191853
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We have read your book, but regret to inform you that it is insufficient. This is not to say that you as a person are insufficient, simply that your writing is. When you asked us what percentage of manuscripts we found sufficient, we told you, “Less tha
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191774
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Before he knew what happened, Shelia ran out of his life forever with their baby in her belly.
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1917125
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I can’t stop looking at the burly man to my left with the blue lips and three-inch mustache. He orders his fourth whiskey. He laughs at my melancholy like it was a flat thing--a dead animal to strip of its fur. Why be melancholic when you can float on whi
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191710
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As Gino exited the supermarket, plastics bags in tow, he began doing curls with his right arm. He’d been doing this for years, reasoning that he might as well get some exercise during the walk home.
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19171819
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Where we live, at the edge of the foothills at the east edge of town, fire is always a worry during the summer, and this has been an exceptionally dry year.
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1917159
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“Phennias Jessup is his name. That’s his death’s head scroll, an hourglass, bats, spirals and angel’s wings on either side of the top part of the stone. "
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19171111
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I recognized the smile. It was a “I’ve got you where I want you now,” smile.
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191700
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When I finally went back to school in the fourth grade, after coming down with polio, my classmates were very welcoming, though I couldn't go outside and run around like them yet at recess or lunch time. That would come, just not right away. But it was th
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191791
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She was skinny and with breasts like a wound up skein of yarn.
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191744
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Why you keep a razor blade in your stocking?
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191733
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And him, now there’s a him. I’d like if he were perfect, but perfect things never are. My daughter says it best, when she contrasts the two of you, “Daddy worked to forget about his problems. When he works, it makes him feel like there is a problem.”
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191732
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Harold Smithe awoke that Tuesday morning precisely at 6 am. He did this every day for as long as he could remember. Even on the weekends when his schedule varied. Well, varied slightly. He lay in bed trying to wake up and mulled over the things he needed to accomplish for…
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191666
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I may be the shadow that I am, but I only ever loved you.
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191641
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She had plain features suggestive of a Native American, which in fact, she was, partly, and she rarely wore makeup of any kind. She easily might have been indistinguishable in a moving crowd except for her loping gait and a tendency to move her hands arou
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191621
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Mower hits a rock and the blades scream.
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191664
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Some people might find it strange and a bit obsessive to mow their lawn every day, but to Shiram it was an irreplaceable part of his daily existence.
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191673
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We spend life, or much of it rather, chasing epiphanies promised to us by hip prophets and free spirits.
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191697
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"Think of every sexual partner you've ever had. I'm nothing like them. Unless you've ever slept with a bulimic German cellist called Elsa."
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191551
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Funny, you can drink wine and eat stale crackers, but you cannot suck a simple lollipop? Where does it say that in the bible? Nowhere, that’s where.
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1915129
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What happened later that evening is unclear. When Mickey got back to his quarters, he was in good spirits. Buoyant even.
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1915159
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Love free of independence is a savage, hungry beast
Phantoms grasping, sweating, gasping 'till her mind could not be freed
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191533
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“Turn the fucking thing off!” I yelled above the noise. “It’s fucking New Year’s morning!”
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1915115
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What did they even invent
clothing for? I asked.
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191521
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The Bridge Barstow had not wanted to listen to Griff. Griff was not making the right decisions, or he thought Griff was not making the right decisions. Thought he was walking a…
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19151412
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Behind them all, in the background, a tray of vodka tonics waits on a glass table, the limes losing color as they drown.
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191520
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The morning sun rose up over the flat prairie, and the powdery snow crunched as you walked on it, and the air was so crisp it hurt as you took a breath. That is good, I thought. That is how you knew you were alive, and I was truly very alive, and there was not much to do so…
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191410
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This is about a mescaline trip that went wrong. It happened back in the '60s and I know, the '60s have been done quite to death and nobody ever gets the trip right but--you'll like this one. Joey and…
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191483
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I walked on hot coals. She got ahead of me. (228 words)
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