In the twilight years, familiar lights grow dim. But are there others that might also flicker on?… more
In the twilight years, familiar lights grow dim. But are there others that might also flicker on?… more
Light snow was still falling, making the scene from the window look like a Christmas card as he stood there crying. She had always been just a pillow away, connected and separated by a million good and bad intangibles between them.… more
Plausible deniability and I were old acquaintances. The only one I was closer with was my dear pal cognitive dissonance. I had been apologising for the people I knew to the people I didn’t know as well, for years.… more
Money can buy happiness, he says. The fluorescents shimmer above him and the dusty gas pumps and the truck that smells like old truck and the lake. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.… more
Dad stands vigil at the helm, arms crossed, tongs snapping air as he draws upon some magic intuition that whispers when to rotate the sausages. Or—as he calls them—Hallowieners, because he is Dad, a Midwestern Dad, and the groans from his wife, children, grandchildren, and family cat fuel his laughter.… more
Each man was missing a limb or two, and sat for hours, smoking and silently staring at the facility’s impeccably manicured lawns. He couldn’t get this image out of his mind. Once he recalled it, he’d be silent for many hours.… more
This week, James has another new story. In this one, God is a gigantic pink baby who reaches down from cloudbanks over the Midwest and swirls up tornadoes with his pudgy fingers.… more
Cassie hands her a trash bag that’s technically empty but symbolically full of the stuff Rita’s been shoving into it for years: all the wont’s, shouldn’ts, can’ts, couldn’ts, and a bunch of you’ll nevers, all of it into the sack that she ties off at the top, starving the bad thoughts of oxygen until they die.… more
The sun rises and sets above the howling like it always does. Turmoil means nothing to it, its astral nature knows only explosion. But I hear the thoughts of the dying when its flame fills their eyes. How it dazzles.… more
I bet school-friend Amir that he’d continue to act; I could see him as a cosy flannel-shirt kinda guy when he got older. Decades later I find Amir online to tell him I was right. He has no idea who Haley Joel Osment is or indeed who I am, and for a moment I wonder if Amir was a ghost all along.… more