A New Kind of Literary Pulse

The night before Jen touched down on Earth, I was holed up in Rachel's bedroom in Houston. We had both made a valiant, fruitless effort to sleep; now it was three in the morning. Sometime around one ... [+]

My dad came home from work and sat on the black leather couch in the living room. He always sat in the same spot. He always looked tired. Every night went the same: first work, then couch until the ... [+]

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was stolen by a terrible necromancer. He and his rotting, clanking horde abducted her from the palace gardens and carried her away and away until ... [+]

Colonel Mathura beckons me forward, but the balcony is a maw with a balustrade of marble teeth. The crowd devours me with their cheers. I shuffle forward to be consumed by their support. The midday ... [+]

"So, you're happy, huh?" he says in disbelief.
He asks me this question several times during our two-hour get-together, trying to understand how I could feel so much happier about my life than he ... [+]

Bellatrix Sakakino worked for a commercial bank, focusing on securities valuation and research, and nobody liked her. This was because of her tints and hues. The colors emanating from her person were ... [+]

Dapper in a topcoat and tails, feet moving fast and graceful as birds skimming still waters, he whirled and swooped, catching my mother, still young and slim, by the waist, bending her backward. She ... [+]

Sarah feels bricked up, even though she's riding her bike. She feels caged, because of where she's riding her bike: to a coffee shop to meet an ex she's not sure she wants to meet. He called her to ... [+]

I've never been less than an hour early for my train. I don't know if it comes from a sense of heightened preparedness or an ongoing current of anxiety that doesn't even let me sleep in on weekends ... [+]

We bought the land to build a house, even though we knew it would be years before we could afford to build anything. We thought of it as an investment in our future. The land gave us something to look ... [+]

Tracy Jo Freely climbed a tree one day. A plum tree. The big plum tree at the end of Miro Street.
"When are you coming back down?" her parents asked her an hour later.
"Never," said Tracy Jo.
He ... [+]

He couldn't say exactly when it fell off, was sometime during the night when he was asleep. But when he woke up in the morning, the ring finger of his left hand was off, tucked underneath the pillow ... [+]

Maria had never been in love. But when she first saw a tiny sprout push its way through the tile floor, she felt something tighten inside her belly. She sat in her father's wooden rocking chair, his ... [+]

Every morning when I wake up, I lean out my window to say hello to Mom. She doesn't reply, but that's okay. She never was a good listener, even before she was buried in our backyard.
My brothe ... [+]

Joey Button didn't know how long he'd been peddling his bike when he saw it, but whenever he'd recall the moment, he'd remember that his legs were tired, so it'd probably been a while. It didn't ... [+]

Twenty years ago, I took my daughter, Sara, to the ocean for her fourth birthday. She just learned to dog paddle, and proudly walked up to anyone in sight, saying, "I can swim." The sea was calm, so ... [+]

There once was a glassblower who lived by the sea. In the daring years of his youth, the glassblower would pull all kinds of strange and wonderful shapes from out of colored glass. He blew neon spires ... [+]

They called her the girl with the big ears, though they didn't call her that to her face. That is, not to her ears. Not exactly. Not intentionally. They were sitting in the cafeteria—one line of ... [+]

I woke up from an untroubled sleep and remembered nothing.
***
Some days I envy Gregor Samsa. He woke up from a troubled sleep and found himself transformed into a giant ... [+]

They sat alone in the back of the sweltering Chevy, their plump pink thighs stuck to the seat. Suzie glared at her brother's hand crossing the sacred middle line, slithering forward like a snake ... [+]