May
I felt a queasy foreboding when the blackout hit. Cell and internet service were down too. My wife Mary, a librarian, a devout optimist, took it in strid...
I paid the cops once they were done with the hobo on the trampoline. I said, while I was paying them, can you believe this? In this neighborhood? A hobo? And th...
Fred had routines. They were always there—routines and habits, all in a particular order, and a part of everything Fred knew. His routines could be listed easil...
She wakes up at three.
She wakes her daughter up shortly thereafter.
She showers.
She makes her daughter a light breakfast.
She drives them both to ...
Shoshona got her period the day after the Fallbrook Fire erupted east of Highway 15 and incinerated hundreds of acres of pot and palm tree farms. Her boyfriend ...
I. Midnight Premonition
I wake up in a dark room to the sound of a blade cutting the wash of traffic outside. My body completely wet. It feels like I’m going...
A young man, Hippolytus, and a young woman, Pip, sit on a ring around Saturn. Stars shoot all around, no sounds but for Hippolytus and Pip talking.
H...
Growing out of adolescence was like emerging from a dense fog.
You breathe better, the things around you become easier to identify. You retain the shape of t...
In my movie, I am a girl walking alone on a subway platform. The dark corners imply gruff hands, sandpaper fingers threatening to wring me out and dump me on th...
A handsome, heartthrob archaeologist flashes a million-dollar smile, flashes a lightning-quick whip, flashes well-tanned pectorals in the gap of his buttoned-do...
I don’t know her personally. Only from the two-and-a-half hours of Facebook stalking, I had done the night before. And— of course— I forgot to put deodorant on ...
I had this mask, smelled terrible–put it on and it was like you were pulling yourself through a wormhole to some sort of hot, rotting planet. Great look though...
So the damn dog’s sinking, cramp in its hind legs, head going under, and there’s me in my yellow jumpsuit with shoulder pads, a medallist swimmer, and yes I cou...
I have a can of ashes. It is all that is left of my parents.
They want taken to some faraway place, some hippy-dippy part of the world, some beach in Fiji. S...
I try not to clear my throat in public, but accidents happen. It was winter. I had a cold. I stifled the bodily noise with my palm, but a guy a table away still...
Plot twists aren't the only measure of a life well lived but they might be the best one, Tyler concludes after many idle hours pondering the wild but moderately...
The scene looks like a Caravaggio portrait, shaded in chiaroscuro from the streetlamp above. The Preacher stands on a flipped-over milk crate at the corner of P...
“Darkness Falls, Jaws, The Ring, Scream, The Grudge, Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween III: the Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,...
The Friday when rent was due, Katelyn moved out. It took one trip with her Geo. She took pride in her entire life residing in a duffel bag, safe, and gray tote ...
They don’t scream like we do.
Pleasure-howls that twist around walls and bleed through the cracks underneath locked doors. Yips that crash into the echoes th...
Stare straight into the Marionette’s bulging, white foam-ball eyes starting immediately after Mom tucks you in, clicks your bedroom door shut. That terribl...
So, my scared stupid moment is super on-brand and I apologize. I can't help it, okay? This state really is goddamn weird. I wake up and there's a marching band ...
I used to run out of the room when the opening theme came on, with the very 90s night-filtered montages of empty row boats and swing sets, the match lit up unde...
Dear Great Witch Madge,
It was great seeing you at the last Witch & a Steak barbecue. Those kababs you made were insane. Sadly, I am not writing today t...
Jacob and Connie pack up their Subaru and back out of the driveway to their house, better known as the Most Haunted House in Drexel Hill. So consumed are they w...
If you are ever to get rid of Him, you have to read this and follow what I say religiously. I didn’t and now… It’s safe to say I didn’t give this to you, that y...
Wherein Madigan Fiske failed to transcend circumstance and forgive crimes against his soul, but was begrudgingly forced to accept the love of the many.
...
It’s dawn and my contacts feel like freeze-dried apple rounds on my eyeballs. To win the game, all I have to do is tap the marshmallows at the exact moment of t...
There was an especially ebullient morning on the farm in late August. My skin at the time was raw from interminable afternoons in late July, but that day a west...
All of your stories begin with Lee. You can’t help yourself. Whatever year it is, whatever bar you’re in, inevitably his name rolls off your tongue and you say ...