Remote notary publics, or "remotaries" for short, are finding themselves increasingly busy as hikers and climbers seek help by cell phone or personal digital assistants from mountain peaks and white-water rafting trips.

They called him Hank. We piled in a car and drove up from Irvine to his little bungalow apartment on DeLongpre near Hollywood Blvd. for a collating party for this Mag he started with Neely called “Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns.” No shit, that wa

I'm sitting in the dark of my own kitchen, because it is dark outside, not from night but from clouds. I guess that's where I'll start talking from. This isn't about you. I'm not sure it's even about me. It's probably about the…

The hospital was a welcome relief. A short ambulance ride, a nice man holding your arm in a make-shift tourniquet, the red sirens flashing and screeching. Then you were…

I sulk across the room to feed you,hold your hand, tell you everything will be fine. It is the right time of night,the light from the street falls onto the chairat the perfect angle. I look at you, gray, shimmering, persnickety. Don't move, thisis just the dust, helping me…

His long black lashes stir, flutter a wink. His eyes catch yours through the dark reflection of your face, illuminated from beneath by wavering candlelight. Reflection obscures his features; they become yours.

Mischief / has marked the bone marauders for doom.

“Elaine, what's that bee doing?”, asked Jonathan as he slid his reading glasses down and turned his attention from the morning paper to a bee that had landed on the his Nesbitt's Lime soda bottle. The bottle sat on the small, hand-made table in their back…

I can be iambic when I want to / be!

she said, point blank, “Can you help me? I need a lover, and a friend.” “I can be both,” I said. I don’t know, I just opened my mouth and out it flew. You don’t even stop to think what you might be saying at a moment like that. I mean, she knew I was s

there are nights when you're all alonein the darkwhere the only lightis the glow of the computer screenand words can't seem the scratchthe surface of your skulland bit by bitthe sentences, phrases, and lettersattached to your synapsesdrownin your subconscious

It was a summer full of rage and discontent. The air had a new taste to it, reminiscent of the tang of battery acid.

I feel I am, in fact,/ the dimmest and least wise/ man on earth.

Dave Sharpe silently pulled his desk chair out of its nook that was conveniently placed underneath his desk. He took a deep breath as he slowly took his place in the seat and nudged it into a perfect…

There was the small wooden structure near the base of the mountain. It had weathered many storms and its walls talked about the scars of this. In the hills to the west various cries came out from feral animals that seemed to go linger that autumn. But it had been a…