Frank sat next to her on the gurney and squeezed her hand. "You're going to be okay, Astrid. You're going to wake and it's going to be over and you're going to be okay." "You don't know that," she said.

The old man is dead, body propped in its cart like the dead El Cid strapped on his horse by Jimena to save Valencia, and yet...

“...you should have something moving around here.” Tracey looked around, then said, “Paul, you should get a cat.”

Alcohol and American writers have always had a connection–about 70 percent of American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature could be considered heavy drinkers if not more.

i dream a thousand interconnected pictures. i dream the future. i dream we are together. i dream i love you. i dream i am forgiven. i dream you care. i dream nice dreams. i go to the bank. i deposit my check. i pay the rent. i pet the cat. i…

And right there beside me That single wobbling Snail-like trail of my heavy French Horn case

I left the train, still going nowhere, but in a hurry. Still a boy, but trapped in a suit.

I was tired and lonesome when I checked into another insufferable, shop-worn Holiday Inn. It was the only motel around with the internet — dial up only — in that little jerkwater town, Notmuch, Alabama. It was too late for a nap, so I jumped in the shower,…

the emergence of the Beatles and the Vietnam War sad human electricity no buzz of any wheel

I'm not dying. What is it called if you think you might have Hypochondria but you really don't? I'm worried that's what I have. Is it cold in here? Or is it me, dying?

Christmas Muzak was piped through to every store in the shopping mall. Giant red velvet bows adorned reproduction Victorian gaslights. Yards of glittered cotton pretended to be snow. A Santa rang a brass bell.

In winter The Woods sleeps and the Woodsman comes. He collects the dead wood and makes coal. He nurses the injured animals and prepares the dying. He distributes the snow and regulates the temperature. In his fur hat…

The world is slick as alabaster, taking the guesswork out of the rain. Junction Road moves like thick grease under the tires of my '89 Skyhawk. The old car's making a clicking noise somewhere underneath the high-beam switch and the damn…

We bought a grand piano at Steinway Hall after 9/11, chased uptown by the dust of death and awakening from dreams of miniature jumpers stuck in the icing of white wedding cakes

The lipstick on your collar walked up the steps and through the front door, without a key. Her smile was hypnotically red and bountiful. The guards standing around didn't dare frisk her for weapons, her lips were weapon enough.