My dad liked to talk about different kinds of chicken – chicken nuggets, chicken goujons, chicken fingers. That’s the only thing he would really talk about. I d...
The airlock reduces its pressure. Getting home –– I find Billy sitting in his morning gown. I stick my head out the window. Cold beer in the refrigerator. T-shi...
Jake hated every single one of his mother’s boyfriends. She had dated many dickwads in the past, but Hank Kearney had positively taken the cake as the worst one...
My work buddy Jake cried last night after watching a Doritos commercial. In the commercial, an anthropomorphic Dorito’s spiciness burns down a whole Dorito neig...
When the portal opens in my bedroom ceiling, I take it as proof that my brain is finally broken.
It’s the only reasonable explanation. I mean, I’m familiar w...
Neuropathy causes pain and tingling and pain and numbness and pain in the affected areas and can cause a person to be unable to move or function in the world in...
The fairy godmother was pissed because she’d been assigned the role of kindly old maid who had to walk around in a pink tutu holding a wand and saving girls fro...
Ivy awakens, sudden and ungentle, to stretch, yawn, and slap at her phone, a haphazard attempt to quell the 6 a.m. alarm she had forgotten to disable the night ...
When Stan’s neck craned toward Madison’s screen, I could glimpse the inside of his collar, the color, a few shades darker than Stan’s skin, of mottled seagulls....
As you eat your eggs, you remember you will never get to see your wife again. This is not the first time you remember. You remember it every day when you buff y...
Marvin was certain he was good at something; unfortunately, others were equally certain he was not.
Specifically, the thing he was certain he was good at but...
Erin rolls her cat, tucked inside his stroller, onto the back patio. They sit together in the shade while she reads a book about how to conquer fear of flying. ...
“Get your dirty boots off my desk,” Frank snarled. He stared hard at the other man.
Roy put out his hands. “Easy, man, easy …”
Roy’s boots thumped down ...
They got a deal on the apartment because it was in the basement of the building, which lent an eerie unfinished look to the dirty, threadbare carpet and crackin...
Who could say no to these pieces of Nineties pop culture history? Set of 5 32oz cups contains original designs of George Michael, MC Hammer, Diana Ross, Scorpio...
I’ve finally arrived at my first school dance and all I can think about is that Dylan is here. I spotted him ahead of me in line while I was waiting for tickets...
Drunk Man was in for a long night. First, there was that robbery, down on 25th street. A gang of hoodlums holed up in Pet Mart, brandishing machetes at the gerb...
Don’t wear fuck-me pumps to brunch, you said. Too late. No time to go home before coming here, this fancy place on the waterfront. Skaters on a rink by the rest...
At home, my neighbor's spouse is slowly dying. Eleanor and Milton, Milton is the dying one. Though I suppose that one of them is not really dying much more than...
Phil opened his eyes to see glass just inches from his face. He looked left, then right. He rotated his eyeballs three hundred-sixty degrees. He saw glass in al...
“The giants of old San Juan grabbed the boys by the ankles and swung them to smash open the piñatas. With the boys out of the way, the girls calmly gathered the...
Fans scream and dance as the pop-punk/emo-punk/emo-pop band, Pluto’s No More, plays up on stage in front of them. Consisting of five members, theirs is a group ...
When I was little, I'd point at the sky and ask Mama if I could have that cotton candy fluff. Sometimes white, sometimes pink, and occasionally orange, they'd c...
On late night after a track meet, and coincidentally a Royals game, my friends and I went on a run to IHOP—the only restaurant still open at 11:30 PM. As we sta...
The bugs in Castor’s head writhed beneath his skull. He threw his burner at the rock-covered ground and screamed, his strained voice reverberating across the la...
“When I got back to my car I was like, wait… if I didn’t have a boyfriend, were we about to kiss?”
Carissa hadn’t planned on telling any of her friends back ...