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...
The bartender was studying for his Real Estate exam, in preparation for which he secretly bought Donald Trump’s book on Amazon. He was enjoying it. Trump wrote:...
We meet in this petrified amber pub. Barely noon, I elbow past the skulking loafers — hulking sentinels stationed along the bar and squeeze into an unwelcoming ...
Stacey was shopping in a supermarket for a big family party. She pushed a bottle of wine wrapped in a pillowcase, nestling in a shopping trolley, and she was co...
so wake up, wake up, I need you. JoJo took me out of old box for cameras, left me stuck on bow wall by Superbowl Bow. Now is my shot to get to new box before Jo...
Whats-her-face was a god the first time I saw her, perched on the top step in the dim morning light. I loved her immediately. She was not like anyone I had ever...
Have you ever tried Queen of Sheba soul cake? It’s a rich chocolate cake with rich chocolate sauce, and its named after the Queen of Sheba (obviously) who was a...
Do not panic. Acknowledge your privilege in having insurance to lose. Your decision to buy a home shielded you as rents rose faster than sea levels. You could d...
I’m not even kidding. In retrospect, it makes some kind of demented sense, but at the time, me and Kara broke our protracted silence and looked at one another.
...
Delancey and Price decided to visit the WNC Nature Center on a muggy Sunday afternoon in mid-August. Fluffy clouds hung low over the Blue Ridge Mountains and re...
It’s a small audience: The director, the screenwriter, and a group of handpicked critics given the opportunity to witness the first cut.
The director is a sh...
The forks and knives in the restaurant clatter like the beats of my shrinking, metallic heart. Across the table from me, Eric smiles. The familiar crinkle of hi...
To all of us, to his friends, to the bullies who thought of the nickname, to everyone besides our parents and his teachers, he will always be Twitch. Whenever w...
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....