The blackout lasted longer than anyone thought. From my fifth story window, the whole city seemed to shut down. I heard noises above me. How could it be?

First he wrote it in wet cement at the intersection: “Tad Loves Kimberley,” with a big heart around it. He was real proud, you could see. But then later on that year, the graffiti began appearing everywhere, on all the store walls: “Kimberle

At a rest stop in Montpelier, they stopped to buy Cokes and gum from the vending machines. He was showing off, trying to jimmy one of the locks with a safety pin but it stayed locked and she laughed at him and he said goddamn, look at all a them Milkyways

The restaurant was not open yet, but Ayane stood behind the counter preparing tea for everyone. She was quiet as she saw Hideki and Mayumi alone in a booth talking.

That Orndoff! I'd like to shove that pipe of his up his arse.

The tech turns off the music. The capsule blares. I am in Jurassic Park with Sam Neill. I am Timmy, descending the electrified fence, almost toast. I am Karen Silkwood, a deer in the headlights, then showering off plutonium. A garbage truck is compacting

A month before the real flowers came, amputated trees for 31 miles were festooned with pink blossoms. The petals were tufts of Fiberglass insulation shorn from houses incapable of withstanding 260-mph winds -- more than twice the punch Katrina delivered t

After sportscasters announced the assassination and while the reverberations of the words were still fading people were already shouting

I said, “If this rose doesn't grow another petal in twenty minutes, I'm burning down the neighborhood.” “Just let it go,” said Paul. “No,” I said. “That's what's happening right here.” “You'll try again next…

On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

You think about the first time you saw an axe

He came to a spot on the edge of the strawberry fields where he liked to sit with his brother and watch the turkey buzzards circle overhead

"Check out these dudes,” he says. “They're all wearing kilts. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they're wearing underwear.

We pull up chairs. I breathe in her Bath and Body Works vanilla, read her paper slowly and aloud because the ears catch what the eyes miss. Her sentences are awkward, stilted.

Juan’s tío, Richard, who works for the city and is the kind of Mexican who thinks he isn’t, took care of the lawyer. Juan checks himself in the mirror, didn’t know how good dressing fancy would feel.