But Von Rotten was up in Penny’s room right this minute, either banging her or haranguing her, or worse, both. I envisioned him with her, and my guts began twisting and turning, and my insides fell into my shoes. What had I done? She was being held capt

When we were on the road coming back out to California, along the Lewis and Clark trail somewhere near Cardwell, Montana, I remember thinking life was like leaping through flames while reading poetry and drinking rotgut red wine. This was what life was, a

Redundancy was critical for survival, the builders said, so they designed Us with three cores of memory, each segment fully capable of independent operation.

Our mothers died in childbirth. Taken in by the village, our new mothers taught us to wave at the river boats, to sell our trinkets to tourists. They offered us coins of a foreign currency and little pathetic smiles. By nightfall, our fingers bled. Then came…

What used to be a scene has broken into fragments and blips of her on a screen I can’t control or manipulate.

Matthias Fenstermacher loved onions, but hated slicing them, and so he labored to produce a tearless variety. His first attempt was indeed tearless--instead of weeping, the slicer was overcome by fits of uncontrollable giggles. The potential hazard was

War came home tonight. We weep and hug, while he stares over our shoulders, like the statue we'll make of him. We pour a drink for his shaky hands, wheel him past his friends the dead, and lie to each other about other, far off places as if we knew.

Emi however, took her sister’s arm and looked at the bandage. Her normal green eyes stared coldly at the wound made by one of the large centipedes. Mayumi realized there was some sense of emotion from Emi wanting to come out.

My mother told me I came out of her screaming and didn’t stop for two years. After that I took up rocking.

That put a real crimp in our already crimped sex life. Actually I didn’t mind as much as Allison minded. It made her real grumpy when she didn’t get laid. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain, because she was so small that it was l

The Karaoke Girls are not appreciated. Not nearly enough and not often enough.

Viewed correctly, nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of clichés. A successful landscape is their pleasing rearrangement.

My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker.

I see my siblings once a year when we all show up, as if required by law, to eat Thanksgiving dinner. It is apparent with every bite how much they hate each other.

I stand corrected once more.