I was minding my own business and singing my song in the back of the city bus when Dana approached my seat. She wore jeans, a side bag, and a white winter coat with a fur trim, where two earbuds dangled from around her neck. She had a scowl on her face and a plastic…Continue Reading “The Nowhere Song”
Something is wrong with Uncle. His door is closed, and his door is never closed. Up on the third floor of the house, just past the second landing stairs where anyone going to their room has to pass by, his door is always open, even when he’s sleeping. Uncle likes to sit in a chair…Continue Reading “Uncle, Who is Hungry”
We all had different names for the woman who lived in next door’s garden. My parents called her Mrs Poppyseed, though I never knew if this was what she was called, by marriage or by birth. My sister, older than me by two full years, called her Widow Weeds for the way long hair hung…Continue Reading “White Lips”
We followed a blue Jaguar off the highway and up a winding driveway lined with cypress trees. Brandon, decked out in a new Italian wool suit, yanked on the emergency brake when we reached the gray stone mansion at the top of the driveway. “Why did you talk me into taking your stupid Prius? Everyone…Continue Reading “Four and Twenty”
Journal entry: Jan 17th. So we moved into our new house. It’s a bust. The walls are – Please – paper thin and the floors are really creaky. Every step I take can be heard throughout the whole house. Whenever it rains, it feels like the water seeps into the walls. It’s annoying and damp…Continue Reading “Between the Lines”
She Who Has Many Legs is still looking at the warrior, waiting. Long ago she may have made the first move, a swift one that may have ended a fight nobody had even seen start. But now she’s old and has grown lazy and quite afraid, so she just lies in waiting, not knowing exactly…Continue Reading “A Spider”
The job market was so dried up, you could only hope and pray for some shitty, part-time shiftwork underneath some dilapidated footbridge. The days of getting a comfy, monster-under-the-bed type job were long gone. Holding out for your own closet to scare out of? Hah! What are you smoking? The market bubble had gone bust,…Continue Reading “The Street”
Henry Buckler had never caused any trouble before. This morning, however, he stormed into the dental office and straight to Anita’s desk. “Mr. Buckler,” the young, petite nurse said pleasantly, looking up from her paperwork, “I don’t recall you having an appointment today.” “Is Bernie in?” he asked tersely, clearly agitated. “Why, yes. He’s –”…Continue Reading “Choppers”
He’s in it for the money, though he’ll probably never say that outloud. Not even in front of the others, the ones that started out their little group: by now, he’s sure some of them believe. Which is, in his not at all humble opinion, a huge irony. Life’s funny like that sometimes. But even…Continue Reading “Dark Times Ahead: The Man Speaks”
Alma Lemieux wakes each morning to memories of her daughter Cynthia. First she remembers the joy with which her husband Herbert greeted the news of her pregnancy, the first flutters in her abdomen, the ever waxing convexity, the pains of birth, how small the child was nested in her arms that first time, the challenge…Continue Reading “Cynthia”