Blending in at a rock concert in ballet flats was harder than I thought it would be. The heavy eye makeup and lit cigarette I never brought to my lips put me somewhere between “Trying Too Hard” and “Bless Her Heart.”

My sister Janis called me from Berlin and said to turn on the news. You could see the thick flurries of snow that were falling there and the flat feathers of peoples' breaths issuing from their mouths as they took turns swinging pick-axes, standing on top

It’s all a matter of warped mirrors. As in the multi-mirrored passage I stood before as a boy

Two days before Christmas 1946, my mother put me on an Illinois Central railroad train at the whistle stop of Neoga, Illinois.

His lawyer, with looming, supermodel good looks, had a mild case of Tourette's. She would be talking to you and then there would be a little tic and her head would bob slightly to the left, and her eyes would go a little blank, and then this very strange

When the sun was above the treeline, and the hunter returned to the cabin, they were ready for him.

She is face down in the snow

They looked like girl’s jeans. Matt held them against himself in the mirror. Not that girl’s jeans were a mark against them. Usually, girls had better jeans anyway. Matt took two of the biggest pairs out of the big chest in his grandmother’s back closet.

Some things you never forget, especially if they are repeated frequently. I cannot hear her voice saying those words, now, I have forgotten its timber, its pitch, but I remember the words.

No one writes epics anymore. Why? Perhaps it's because we no longer share mythologies. Once there was a shepherd, and now there is a Google bus loaded with pricks. Yes, you say, but they are good at math. Each and every one of them. And this is true. I envy them…

I used to see kids at the mall with those extendable "kid leashes". Like the ones made for chihuahuas. Like the ones made to squash a good story, you know...

The next time I woke up there were several guns pointed at me. I opened my eyes to see my mom and dad watching as the local cops arrested me.

Each drip off the corrugated plastic sheeting made a tinny sound that he could hear from deep within the damp sleeping bag and layers of blankets where he was trying to sleep.

“Who’s chasing you?”. When the answer is ‘no one’, it’s best to drive away, like you would from a forgettable Oregon town or someone who can’t love you more than they hate themselves.

From a window, the young Pole Krzysztof Penderecki saw resistance fighters hanged by Nazis...