A brilliant summer’s morning and David, an introspective, but ever curious, thirteen-year-old child, is walking alone as he often does in the countryside near his home. His preference for his own company sometimes worries his parents as does his remarkable capacity to accept and tolerate pain. Though small for his age he is at school... Continue Reading →
You’re sitting at your desk, grading test you should have passed out today in class like you had promised your students, but you’d decided to watch hockey the night before and leave the work for later. Now it’s later and here you are, still awake at almost midnight, and trying to get these grades... Continue Reading →
I was at a party talking with some people I didn’t know, and in this group was a woman that I was very attracted to. I kept looking at her, but when our eyes met she’d frown, and I could almost hear her saying, “Don’t even think of hitting on me!” Even so, I tried to make... Continue Reading →
When I met Dorothy in the dayroom, I did my best to hide my astonishment. To put it mildly, she’d changed. Her cheeks were jowly now. The skin on her face was made up of rosy patches surrounded by doughy blanched patches. Red spindly veins stitched these patches together. Her mouth was reduced to a... Continue Reading →
Janet placed her hand on her stomach and smiled at her husband. After years of battling infertility, they knew they would have a chance to hold their very own bundle of joy very soon. It was all she’d ever hoped for: her very own nuclear family. Todd smiled back at her. “How’s the baby today?”... Continue Reading →
The smell of pizza battles the odor of nail polish remover for the room. It's what has become our regular Friday night with a half-eaten box of delivery pizza sitting on the coffee table next to watered-down cola's and my wife's feet. She has twisted and woven Kleenex tissue between her toes. What looks like... Continue Reading →
Church Choir Willie was a master of the profane. His vocabulary was limited and thus the words that he used were few but they were, nonetheless, expressive. Quite expressive. He could singe the bark off a lodge pole pine and be into the wood grain before he finished the sentence. Only Nellie the Pig could... Continue Reading →
It’s 3 a.m. Another day of guilt. Another night of restlessness. I’m lying in bed while your story keeps me awake. It started when I heard you had the virus, and that you might not recover. I felt sorry that your life would be passing any moment, tragically, much sooner than we all expected. Tossing... Continue Reading →
Tim Troval watched through his living room window as the St. Patrick's Day parade marched down his block. After grinding his teeth at a pile of returned to sender letters to the Mayor's office, Tim shut the curtains. Even though the booze was outside, he could smell it in the deepest parts of his nostrils. ... Continue Reading →
Steam shot out of the radiator as Julian loosened the cap. He stepped back from the car and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The hot wind battered him with dirt and pieces of prairie grass. He licked his parched lips and kicked at the rust-colored dirt road with the... Continue Reading →
