'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.

The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.

One rainy day I walked to an out-of-the-way section of town where the buildings were old, and the streets were cobblestone.

still the water's insurrection continues, transforming the room into a silent crucible whose pure liquid melts our voices and surges above our heads.

I love to lie when discovered. "I'm your new neighbor." "The landlord sent me." "I'm the ghost of the girl who died on the 11th floor." "I fell from the sky." I wear billowing white dresses and a wide-brimmed straw hat that throws my face into shadow. Peo

She sits at home, on the floor of the kitchen, bathing her stuffed animals in molasses to match the ones on the news.

She said this is our abode and it sounded like a warble and she made a sweeping gesture with her arm and the boy started to cry.

As soon as she left, I sat down at the computer. Booted up. Read my e-mail, then looked at pictures of bare-naked ladies.

Eighteen-layered canvases were prized by both of them, regardless of whose work appeared on top.

"The problem is, sometimes my pigeon wants to fly somewhere new- to the beach or south for winter. Other times, my pigeon wants to steal someone else’s lunch or picnic with a stranger’s leftovers. Often, my pigeon wants a good show and some freedom, to be

He sits on a folded-over cardboard box, slightly off-balance and without any visible sign of support other than the granite wall of the bank behind him and the few coins in the paper cup he shakes at each passerby.

That’s how I’d met him really: drinking games. We’d both been at the local watering hole, challenging the other patrons to drunken games of chance and making a clean sweep of it. A few guys figured themselves for alpha dogs had Teqs cornered after he’d ta

I’ll bring the naproxen sodium so we won’t have any problem grabbing things.

—That was harsh, said Jen as the bathroom door slammed behind Melanie. —Mel's my best friend, not yours. She needed to know that shade of blue doesn't go with olive skin. —Viv, you said she looked like a whore. —That's how our friendship…

I was having festive sex flashbacks and wasn't thinking sharply.