Most recent stories

My baby

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The nightmares started in the seventh month. I have always been a deep sleeper and one of the things that comes with that facility is an inability to extricate oneself from nightmares.

And We Are Laid To Waste

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August 14 I remember the smell of fresh air. The feeling of clean air in your lungs. I haven't had that feeling in quite some time now. I guess few people have.

Heat

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It was so hot we walked out on our husbands. There were reasons, we supposed. They left the refrigerator doors open all day, grabbing beers when they passed by, tossing the sticky caps upon counters. They drove their Metropolitans to buy food, leaving th

The First Round

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It was mostly accidental.

In the Hamptons

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Class differences in New York (and if you believe F. Scott Fitzgerald, in America, generally) are best viewed from the beach.

The Pilgrimage

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Frey wanted to see heaven without having to die. He had returned from the sea after being gone for three weeks, ranting wildly about a giant ship he had seen in the distance one afternoon.

Blind Spots

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He was twisted...

LIGHT FINGERS

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Like gymnastics, shoplifting is a discipline of youth.

So Different Now

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She’s right there in Thirsty’s. In her usual spot. Drinking her usual drink. Yuengling on tap. One after another. And he’s there too. Behind the bar. Pouring drinks. One after another. Sometimes they speak. But mostly she orders. He pours. And

The Men Who Forgot Math and Poetry

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"They treat us like shit," the mathematician said. "They think they can just take us and electrocute us and drown us."

Jimothy

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Alien meets nicotine

The Panda

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“Maybe she will like Boo-Ba-Loo, the large male from America,” they said. So they shipped in Boo-Ba-Loo and put him in the pen next to Ding-a-Ling.

A Day in the Life of Mike

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This is a very impromptu piece written at two in the morning based on a prompt from Meg Pokrass, who insisted the following words be used: fussyhairybloomingslipperyflutterdamppaleweedsyanking “Maxfuss” was his password, which was appropriate,…

Google for giggles

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Why won’t my parakeet eat my diarrhea?

September 1969

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Lake Berryessa, CALIFORNIA It was dusk on the 27th of September when the Stocky Man finished his work and trudged casually back across the…

The Grief Counselor

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At first she kept repeating "I don’t know why he's doing this" as if the cops thought she was mixed up in it somehow. When they convinced her that all she needed to do was talk to her brother and tell him to give himself up, she looked hopeless.

Aguilas Range

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When I was thirteen and still lived in the desert I saw a ghost woman at the top of a dry waterfall in the foothills.

Coffee

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I hate walking into restaurants and cafes by myself to meet someone. I always feel awkward, as if no one will claim me. I'm hanging on the threshold now for an agonizing few moments scanning the room until I see my friend.“Hi!” she says, waving her cup at…

Psychological Profile for "Joe"

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He boasts of administering regular beatings to his wife and claims that she enjoyed it.

Why Aren’t There Fireflies

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There are hundreds of fireflies crackling along the tree line and the old stonewall.

The Company's Sprinkler Heads

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I am alive, and I am hungry. Angry, I want more. I am not content with what you're offering me. Forty hours a week, two weeks vacation. A mortgage and car payments. Wife and kids, a dog in the suburbs. It's all incredibly unexciting, unsatisfying.

In A-B-C Order

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When she was nineteen, she began to brew a baby in her belly. She named it, and sang to it, and organized the leftover hand-me-downs that hadn't been worn ragged through by the first seven sets of recipients.

The Crescent Caretaker

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Enter Tipitina’s – the rotation hole where electric, shoeless uncles allocate their copper goulashes to catch white dripwater.

Saw Her

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Just like that. He heard her words clearly from the top floor of the five story apartment building. The unexpected change in weather made it mandatory for him to open his window.

Noises

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It was midnight. I was outside the cottage, digging another row of star-shaped holes for the shrubbery.

The Ageing Beaver

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This was just noise now – pure, raw noise, grabbed from their throats and flung high by some sharp claws of violence buried in their breasts. Even from his third floor apartment, they sounded like they were right outside his window now. It was if they h

Jesus Wept

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When my husband died, I was in bed with his brother. Ricky and I had been married six years, three months and two days when his little brother, Ben, and I gave in to the lust that just would not go away in spite of our prayers and tears.

The Scenes Speak for Themslves

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We are the images, the tableau vivant, the one-person shows, the scenes from scattered plays. We wait for the Caretaker who prompts us to play and replay one by one on her rounds.

Are You Okay?

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Moving is like moving upstream, like swimming underwater against a mighty current. You are salmon people: pink, vulnerable.

Close those lips

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Ma tells me not to put a tampon between my legs. For fear of cotton fornication.