I was chasing my little brother through the park at dusk. The whole park was filled with restless families waiting for the fireworks to start. My brother halted in his grass-stained diaper. "God ... [+]
I was chasing my little brother through the park at dusk. The whole park was filled with restless families waiting for the fireworks to start. My brother halted in his grass-stained diaper. "God ... [+]
Rule Number 1: When asked about your parentage, give suitably vague answers.
It was Jimmy Doogan, a boorish kid with freckles spread like flak across his face, who had been the first to
...
[+]
The last time I saw my father he was wearing a toupee that looked like a year's worth of dryer lint, a worn-out Carolina t-shirt, the blue almost white now, green golfing shorts, and penny loafers ... [+]
When we awoke, we found a great curtain of linked metal rungs had been lowered to earth from the sky. The chain mail drape connected land and sky and ran as far the eye could see, across the ocean ... [+]
With a fresh kill in tow, the hunter made his way back to camp through the snow-covered forest. The weight of the stag labored his every step. A cold snap hit. Sharp, biting winds whipped icy ... [+]
It came to him suddenly, as he ran down the street screaming and on fire, that he was making a spectacle of himself.
After all, this was a modest neighborhood of well-maintained lawns and sensible
...
[+]
The meep of the alarm dragged me from the warmth of my quilt cocoon and smack into Monday morning. I had to bat at it four times before it finally stopped and I found my glasses. 6:00 A.M. and still ... [+]
I never thought I would end up like this – like a tabloid horror story. Someday I bet I'll be discovered dead, here in my tiny, piss-scented apartment, being devoured by my seventy cats.
Thing is
...
[+]
My father was a somniloquist; he only talked to me in his sleep. Lured at night by his one-sided conversation one room over, I would escape the cot I'd grown out of, gaze at my sleeping mother, and ... [+]
A witch wind was howling out in the desert. I was praying for a storm to scour Coaling Depot 6 down to the ground, wipe it right off the Arizona Territory map. Apart from prayer, I still had a shot ... [+]
For all his life, Frank had been at war with the willows. They sprouted in and around the stream, clogged the irrigation ditches, and choked off the water flow.
His land, a narrow plain between
...
[+]
The old man is watching a seagull eviscerating a crab. The decapod crustacean probably was handsome in his youth but not any longer. Does he wish he could scream? Or is it better to be stoic and ... [+]
The second house on the left. If the door is blue, you're welcome. Red, you've come too early. Green, too late.
The meaningless chant comes to me whole. I can't remember where I've heard it, but
...
[+]