Now you inhale her because you once read that cyanide smells of sweet almonds. In her bed, after finding each other in a bar you only entered because of its boo...
Way up in the clouds, in the sky, right in the middle of heaven, I walk to the mall to meet a once-coworker. I walk just the one road and it’s not far from my a...
Malone needed another man / and I was there. My first day as parking lot attendant at the Aviation mall; it was empty save for select groups of tourist families...
Although the seat belt sign had been illuminated, indicating that passengers should remain in their seats with their seat belts securely fastened low and tight ...
His father announced to the table that he brought the boombox.
"No, Dad," said Gerry. “If you do . . .”
Gerry was my best friend, and we were at the rehea...
Hi, I’m Martin Scorsese. I’m here to show you all the blueprints. As you can see, I am surrounded by maps and storyboards, even a Buddhist urn, but I don’t want...
It started with the cereal box. A phrase in bright blue bubble letters held up by an army of cartoon frogs;
Initially believing it to be some sort of n...
Everybody loves Soda, the new soda from Food Corp. We all drink it all the time. People say it has a secret ingredient that turns estrogen into tumors. I don’t ...
Hedy lives in the city now. I try not to think of her too much, tossing her long braids in class, or drinking at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, a young, flabby Wall S...
She brought me Mai Tais at my brother’s private resort in Mexico. They tasted like medicine - thick syrup on the bottom and pure liqueur on top - but I still do...
I lived in a village in the woods where looking up was forbidden. It was forbidden because it was dangerous. If you looked up into the sky you would be sucked a...
The first time I sat for confession, In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, I thought about revealing how I’d stay up late on weekends just to...
“We are eating butter pasta,” I announce with a brevity that is beyond me. By “we” I mean me, and this declaration came with no more than giving a sardonic nod ...
There are no real life meet cutes anymore. You either flip through endless options on dating apps, get lonely enough to take a chance on one of your orbiters, o...
Attorney Meredith Browning’s husband of five years, Drew Baxter, an emerging star in stand-up and sketch comedy, now on the second season of the eponymous sitco...
You can tell by the sound of Atomic by Blondie pumping through the ailing sound system that Brandy is into her third dance. By the time Black Dog by Led Zeppeli...
They were hitting. The two boys along the streambank, angry as Cain and Abel and oblivious of paradise vanishing, and just by the water’s edge, they were hittin...
The first time I see the robot inside my husband, I think I must be imagining it.
The alarm fractures my dreams, propels me into a hot cave of blankets, a ha...
Josh clicked the pop-up alert and a live Instagram video started. He saw her, squinting at her screen, as if trying to read something. He’d watched several of h...
You will ease into the leather. Drive your slim frame into the car’s black cushion. You treat it like a dream pillow. Your eyes blink in slow motion, when you l...
Duran will be here any minute.
I’m in a parking garage, where he said he’d pick me up for our date. I look into the shard of glass I keep in my purse. People...
The man at the door knocked three times. Joseph could see him through the net curtain. A smudged outline, unmoving. Just a shadowed shoulders and head.
I’ll...
Keep a cardigan matted with your cat’s hair in your cubicle to wear to all meetings scheduled at 4:00 PM. Sit next to Bernadine. She uses a lint roller more...
Beaver Tooth Baptism - This ride recreates that September afternoon when the air hit a hundred degrees and you watched Courtney balance across the fallen tree t...
Of course, with the students, they’re mostly not dumb enough to think they’ll have writing careers, or else they’ve self-published fifteen sci-fi novels since t...
Grey hoodie pulled tight over her head. Concrete grey San Diego sky on a cool, restorative autumn morning. Staring out at it. Entranced. Eyes as glassy as the s...
I dreamt I fucked your husband. Except we didn’t, not technically, there was no penetration, and he came early while we were still rolling around. Told me he ha...
I upend my life. I don’t have much, but I pawn all that’s worth something. I sell a Patek Philippe watch I stole from my uncle’s office when I was eight years o...