Something reached into Avi and took his voice, turning his volume to zero.... A short story of one day. A man going to work, a little magic, a car crash, and a wedding.

I remember telling you that I listened to country music. You surprised me with a whole tape that you recorded of all my favorites and I didn’t know how you figured them out, except that you must have snuck up beside my bedroom window at night. And

"As the thing lurches upright, I can see now that it is an old woman with snake eyes… a dead old woman with snake eyes and peeling flesh. She is putrid and maggoty. She is coming right at us. She is my mother."

Someday they'll find me face-down in a puddle of ink.

Now how do you feel about that, My future graverobber friend?

I dream about the boy in The Neverending Story, the gate of mirrors, and the Nothing, a dark cloud that floats in the sky, takes away everything.

I'm wonderin how'd your momma and pop get you to give up a whole summer to spend in this dusty old polio museum we call a house?

“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.

Normally I would have never drank such a wine, but it was late on a Friday evening and the bottle was on the house...

But Allison was so tight, poor thing, that it was a little like having sex with a virgin every time we did it. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain. I guess it was the mixture of pleasure and pain that kept her going, or maybe she was

If I floated about this coffee cafe,Like a spirit, just watching.In this room of framed fake memories,A room of ambient light, marketing to the masses,(It works; it gets 'em in the doors.)If I floated, I'd seeThese people sitting—eating, drinking, sipping, typing,…

When his mother was all dressed up on New Year’s Eve, and his father, even thought they had tickets for the dance, announced to her he wasn’t going to go, Johnny had gone into his room, put on a white shirt, a dark suit, his dress shoes, and a clip-o

Billy liked dinosaurs. He played dinosaurs, collected dinosaur toys, drew pictures of dinosaurs, great shambling beasts of tooth and claw, whose passing shook the jungles and whose drooling jaws devoured figures not unlike his sisters. For birthdays and

There was a man crying, walking his dog and a woman drove by on a flat tire They brought coffee to the tables in large glasses on white saucers There’d be long silver spoons with which to stir in strong

As children we invent games and we're really creative. We concoct ridiculous rules and enjoy making adaptations to them. And everything makes sense. Then you grow up, lose creativity. You don't invent games anymore. Recess is replaced with a second…