As she sat with her fiancé at her folks’ dinner table, Erin pictured the playhouse under the wild cherry tree. She shut her eyes and saw herself slipping past it’s polka-dotted exterior to crouch within the solitude of its particle board walls. Dad...
5over3BOB! When Robert “Bob” Lomax glimpsed the banner rippling in the sky behind the aircraft, he thought he’d misread the words. But every day after that, he ran into the slogan at least once. The message appeared on telephone poles, on the sides...
I’ve been back on earth five days, confined to a holding tank and subjected to countless debriefings. Finally, they’re through with me. As soon as Eugene, my driver, drops me off at my apartment, I change into jeans and head out to Clemens Outdoor...
Dempsey, in perfect form, swings a left and knocks Firpo clear out of the ring. Firpo tumbles backward, heels-over-head, splayed like a giant octopus. A guy with flaming-red cheeks yelps. But the boxer lands beside him in the lap of a deaf-mute. The...
P.K. Kelp enjoyed the great indoors. Reading, drawing and writing kept him perfectly happy. Day after day, he sat hunched over his roll-top desk, inventing alternate lives for himself through the characters he created. But his chair-bound activity...
My muscles quivered like the gelatinous turtle dish I’d been served in Yangshuo, and my skin felt drenched in it. After a day of vigorous cycling, my body didn’t care if we missed the sunset on Moon Mountain. It refused to climb two thousand stairs...
“Happy Anniversary, baby. Hey, what’s the matter?” “Nothing, Cole. I’m just thinking about parts of our life together. For instance, how—when we first met—you told me you were a director. Remember that? You let me believe you worked on movies, when...
Snowflakes descend in a silent waltz. It was not so two days ago. Then, and for weeks before, we enjoyed summer-like weather. Then, Allegra lived. Allegra, the “exuberantly cheerful”, lover of music and man. Though she could no longer play, she continued...
Cyrus sits in the darkest corner of La Tanière sipping his bourbon and waiting for Ramona. The first time he saw her at the jazz club, she wore a sleek red dress, and her raven hair cascaded, unfettered, to her waist. But it was her plangent laughter...
Dear God, I won’t ask you for anything new. I just want you to restore the things I foolishly discarded. Let’s start with that day-old lemonade I poured down the drain, yesterday. I will gladly drink a gallon of it, no matter how funky the pulp looks...
As usual I’m watching my feet, so I don’t step in dog do. And I’m considering what I should buy everyone for Christmas. It’s always frustrating to come up with gift ideas, but it’s especially hard this year, since I’m strapped for cash. I swear this...
An only child usually compensates for his lack of siblings by making lots of friends. Edmund did not. He thought friends were bothersome and inconvenient. Edmund’s work—cartography— satisfied him plenty. The lines, the symbols and the finely printed...
The rain is tearing up the streets like ammo—same as the night I met Sylvie. “Forget your umbrella?” says the geezer behind the counter of the all-night java joint. He scowls at my puddles like he doesn’t own a mop. “I was never good at predicting...
