The headlines were my source of information and contact. Four Soldiers Killed in Baghdad read one. Seven Ambushed in Fallujah. I’d read them, look for his name, and maybe clip it out. It put me there; put me in touch with him.

The trouble began in October, when Ava, an embittered receptionist who worked at a small museum housed in a five-story Westside brownstone, discovered that the floors were littered with enormous grey feathers

I don't think dogs like to die with the pack. The smell of them rotting brings trouble in the wild,

Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.

Her eyes stared wide with panic, her teeth chattered intermittently with impressive intensity, and with her ineffectual stabs at the air she completed the portrait of distracted mania.

His birthday buddy was like a wife to him: they were born a day apart. This was coordinated, he believe, in the womb. Well, to be more accurate, wombs. She was due two weeks earlier but waited; he two weeks later but cut his womb-time (as the kids call i

The tall, standing woman with bright red lipstick, elegant at one time, you could tell, responding, “She has dementia,” pointing at her brain. “She was a Holocaust survivor.” And the one they’re talking about turns as she’s pushing her wal

once she went to quenchthen she went to scrubnow she collects dead toadsgrinds them with cornmeal to feed her sowsonce she ploughed the land toiled with her face deep in dark soil her back burning in hot sunnow she works in the paper millmaking laminated labels for the…

Oh, also, had no idea what the whole visit to the Kingdom of the Dead was getting at. Interesting, but seems unrelated to the larger story. I'd cut it. Remember — this is a story about one man's attempt to get home. Stay focused on that.

There's always a sound, something triggering the fear.

"She has a lot of time to think these days. What else is a woman to do with the rest of her life?"

It calmed the guilt in my heart while kids reveled, laughed, and "made time" with the neighborhood girls on that final night of freedom. No one would talk to those girls again.

chet baker shades my eyes rippling through the cool water sometimes we feed the fish

Somehow I always had to sit behind him. I remember because he had a constellation of skin tags on his neck. I thought about drawing stars on him; I thought about creating a new galaxy I would rule. I should have been learning math instead. I still can’t

That stupid bastard seemed to defy death at every turn in his life. His actions suggested invincibility, but his catch phrase indicated full awareness that he was indeed quite vincible. And how fitting was his name. We didn’t know if it