A new kind of literary pulse

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... [+]

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... [+]

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... [+]

After I left Tom, I rented a house next to a cemetery. My mother offered to help me move. Standing in the gravel lot where I parked my car, she regarded the one-story clapboard partially hidden in... [+]

"You didn't invite them in, did you, Sheila?"
Grandfather Jessup clasped my biceps in his feeble grip and searched my face, worry akin to fear darkening his eyes. I patted his liver-stained hand and... [+]

The cool breeze drifts in from the Pacific Ocean through the banana plant leaves. Shadows dance across the pastel pallet of the bedspread; the charcoal nude woman looks over her shoulder. Jesus... [+]

Across a wood-grain bar in southern Minnesota on the way to Buddy Holly roller coaster in slower Iowa, I lay a few dollars on the bar for the sixpack of Blatz (cheapest they got and straight from... [+]

Harold Gates slowed the snow-topped yellow taxi and edged it along the slushy curb to a stop where she stood, shivering in a tattered wool coat in a January blizzard on the steps of her unlit... [+]

Near midnight she pedals her rented bike past Checkpoint Charlie. Vacant, but suitably restored, the off-white, utilitarian guard box occupies the middle of the street, protected from a barrage of... [+]

This job is a grand. We’re supposed to deliver the piano from a suburban chateau into a self-storage facility. Why doesn’t matter. Pick-up address, how many floors down; delivery address, how... [+]

On the days I visited the care center, I’d walk past this used bookshop on a quiet sidestreet. There were these four books in the shop window that always caught my eye. Other books would come and... [+]

The weather was good today, you answer whenever I ask how are you, how was your day. I don’t know when we stopped talking about what mattered the most because you won’t tell me. I ask are you... [+]