2322 2 0
|
Old man Hensley was fed up. With everything, he would say, if one was so inclined to ask (which was not advisable). It was his first morning as an official retiree and, if it was…
|
2321139
|
We argue on the way down. We bicker on the walk to the bistro. I get coffee and croissants at the bar and bring them back to our table, and she is still talking, proving me wrong, when I return.
|
232111
|
And here I am again.
I chew my nails. I tap my foot. I chew my nails. I sweat. I bleed. My nose bleeds. It drips. I drip. I'm dripping through my chair.
|
23212515
|
I came from the only flat region in the kingdom of mountains and fjords, and called the city “Down in the Dumps”. The beleaguering mountains smelled a flatlander when they saw one, and hated me right back.
|
232123
|
My father's hands were huge. His left knuckles gashed as a kid when he rode his bike too close to a moving train. When his fingers fisted around a glass, the scarred joints bulged from his grip like blind eyes.
|
232152
|
It’s true that there are many accounts of fascinating Amish dinnerware, but none is more interesting than Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate, forged in 1881.
|
232132
|
Of course, you're eventually struck by the thought that the house you saw on the hill was not your house and that those children and the dog are purely matter for the strange.
|
232022
|
A little bony for my tastes–I wonder if she’s on the Lady Di diet. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers, but it would be like sleeping with Eva Braun.
|
231840
|
That night we slept on the floor of Kirk and Maggie’s apartment and listened to them arguing all night about art and life and love. Ah, me, I sighed, the sad soul of America! I thought of Walt Whitman. I thought of Allen Ginsberg.
|
231862
|
It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m lying in bed, wide awake, drenched in sweat. I know what I need–a Thin Mint cookie–but I don’t know where I’m gonna find one.
|
231821
|
round & round
this empty block
again & again i go
|
231820
|
"James, can you take a peek at problem://7ac5e46f today?"
"It's just another big dumb object. Seems low priority."
"Escalated by the directorate."
|
23171613
|
|
23171712
|
The Gothic-filigreed gate creaks as a guard closes it behind the little girl in the ruffled dress. Standing there in the morning fog, on the sidewalk outside the reform school, she looks remarkably like Shirley Temple. Dimpled, chubby face. Pretty, party dress. Her…
|
23161210
|
SeesWe fell into this lake together and traced the clean soft lines straight back to ourselves, with a carefree laugh, ha ha ha-- an embarrassing ease. This small miracle does tend to put in orbit something high flying besides clouds into the sky inside of…
|
231692
|
It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…
|
23161210
|
I hate math. I hate everything about it.
|
231610
|
The sun browbeat me relentlessly, like a one-eyed judge with an unforgiving heart.
|
231621
|
A herd of garbage trucks groaned down dark streets filling their black hydraulic hearts with rotten trashcans and glass, and a smile ate her whole face. I showed her a text from a friend: "T-minus 10 seconds till meltdown."She laughed and I wrote back.A small,…
|
231631
|
The crackling inferno sweeps across the ground
Devouring all in its scorching path
|
231686
|
There was man from antiquity that sat next to me. His belief in the healing qualities of Aloe Vera so pronounced, that the house brimmed with such. He had no use for modernity in any of its forms but was fond of supermarkets. When in one he was overwhelmed with an…
|
231553
|
Show me where to go, he said out of defiance for the moment in which time was malleable and fat minutes were consumed by wayward, languid hours. And all I could do for the time being was sit there excruciatingly anxious for this to pass, so it…
|
231587
|
next time i come around i want to be a redwood.
|
2315119
|
Suddenly there was a crash of thunder, and they raised their eyes for the first time heavenwards. That was the beginning of what we call civilisation. - adapted from Prolegomena to Work in Progress — Stuart GilbertIt's the third year of the third millenium,…
|
231543
|
That’s the way it went all day with me—didn’t get far, didn’t see much, just, with Mary, drank tea here and there. A fine day it was, too; not cloudy, not raining...
|
231583
|
The Parachutist closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then opens them back up again. The earth is very beautiful, and very small from where he is. It is getting larger quickly, which is vaguely alarming.
|
231493
|
The year I lick so much windowpane off stamps I have to use Elmer's glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the "wine" parties.
"Wine" is what we put down
|
231393
|
Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky. Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.
|
2313118
|
Erin Hoffmeyer Zulkoski. I was at work today, doodling on a piece of scrap paper. I often find myself writing my name, practicing my signature, for when I become famous. I have always written "Erin Zulkoski." Today, I wrote "Erin Hoffmeyer." This…
|
23131714
|
Unfinished, deeply flawed stories require the kind of handling you see in movies where a Virus That Will Doom Mankind is disposed of by scientists in hazmat suits.
|
