A new kind of literary pulse

They did it for the hell of it. They knew they wouldn't last. Their friends knew; their families knew; even their dog knew, though it wasn't invited to the wedding.
It was fun, especially when they... [+]

I imagined diving under all that churning water to look for coins from faraway countries. My feet would be glued to the ground carrying the weight of one of those old-timey, metal spaceman-looking... [+]

In the office, she wrote everything on yellow paper: legals pads, while-you-were-outs, carbon copies, and sticky notes. Her eyes, so accustomed to the faded yellow of her workdays, had difficulty... [+]

My older sister Nancy and I walk down the street together. In our hands are plastic grocery bags that smell like shame and old onions. We are going trick-or-treating. I know we're getting too old fo... [+]

There's a ghost in my house. I hear her singing.
A little girl. Why is it always a little girl?
The light through the window is barely enough to see by, but the sky outside is very pale. Clouds... [+]

I. Sober
Mrs. Anna Shaw dreaded Saturdays, though if you asked her why, she wouldn't have known exactly what to say. "Dinner just doesn't feel right," she might say, tugging thoughtfully at he... [+]

We spent hours at the store. Allison examined each animal one by one. She studied their movements, their noises and their smells. She looked at their feathers, spots, fur patterns, and colors. She... [+]

Gregory Ashton set out alone from his apartment in Mar Vista, California for an extended walk. It was spring in the year 20–, and Gregory needed exercise. His doctor had recently diagnosed him as... [+]

My father was a doctor. We never got the doctoring bug. He never spoke to us about medicine. Instead, he took us on road trips and taught us to play catch, even me. When we were little, he would read... [+]

Each morning his face flushed as he remembered the boy's words, "I want that shovel. It's just like yours." And each morning he fell to his knees, extended his arms, then plunged his hands into the... [+]

Long ago, an incorporeal god of light named Belgrin flew over the face of the earth searching for new and interesting objects to illuminate. When he found a young woman named Isil, he stopped. He was... [+]

He had earned the stamp of "loser" in his father-in-law's eyes. Worse, he was less a man to his wife Jean. When a possum tried to move in a few months after they purchased their little two-bedroom... [+]