When the telephone rang the fallow fields we lay in years ago became distant countries, filled with falling stars. The distant country into which you had disappeared became a pistol with a single bullet in the chamber.

The dying rose spoke to the wood That kept in it's heart a love of good And all that was in bloom It could not let that happy rose Fret about in terrible death throes Would not be its tomb.

Reverend Peter Roman could stand it no more. He stopped his speech. He felt a fire burning through him, a hatred for humanity and all the weaknesses of beings not perfect before God. He stood a long while, staring at the congregation. Then, he slowly spok

The night before, his dad had stumbled in drunk and beat his mother. John had covered his ears with his pillow to block out their screams.

Back when Richard was still skinny and mean, we fought at The Island. He broke a pool stick over my head. I bruised more than his ego. We fought over a woman, as always. We were best friends and that’s what we did. W

There’s things you can change in this world and things you can’t. We have to figure out which is which. Though I never was much good at it, I guess.

I kiss his sunburned nose, so nice under the beach house. We hear the shower of palm leaves like wings getting ready. We talk about a time we'll no longer know each other, when he'll be sad in a bar in another state, slipping and sliding and petting lost dogs in the parking…

Holy shit, man, look at that!” Mike's pimply face melts into drooling bliss. His dad had stopped in this whacko town on the way to our campsite, muttered something about angry lesbians, and disappeared. Rick and I follow Mike's dumbstruck gaze to a shop…

that is a fair description of our family if I add the disclaimer that the girls are whores and we don’t have much in common.

To make extra money, my father wrote music reviews for the Calgary Herald, and on Saturday nights, he went to hear the Symphony, or into recital halls to listen to the chamber music that was being performed around the city. He took me, once, to a performa

We construct what we want, from what has failed in the past. We thought this worked. The picture was buzzing for me and I tried to hold on. I went blindly forward.

‘Just get out of bed,’ I reply. ‘It looks like the fairies have been at your head. You should turn your clothes inside out. Put out a biscuit. Ring a bell. Buy a rooster; or a recording of it crowing. It will keep the sprites at bay.

Puberty, for Ellen, was less than an overnight event—yes, she got her period in a more or less timely fashion, but what her doctor referred to coolly as secondary sexual characteristics—namely, boobs—took their damned sweet time in coming.

You looked like someone I didn't want to know. I guess that's why I got in the car that night. My penchant for self-destruction was aroused by your black nail polish and the lavender circles under your eyes. You looked like someone that could hurt me, yeah, that's why I got…

I drove all night, but there weren’t nothing Roy Orbison about it. I’d been driving and around lunchtime I just thought I might stop by Shona’s place.