The flash is like a cartoon. Humorous at first, amusing even, increasingly grotesque as it goes along. It’s the flash when a 25-year-old pizza delivery man, preparing to press the doorbell for a delivery — pepperoni pizza piping hot in its warming sleeve, baseball hat company logo cocked off to one side — sees his […]
Silence Underfoot
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The ballad of Sheila and David
The afterthought of David was more powerful than the presence of David. What Sheila was trying to say was that after he moved the last of his things out of the apartment — the boxer shorts and shaving cream, the rye bread and loose change — she kept wondering when he’d be back. But when […]
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The coffee barista’s experiment
1) In the 20th hour the spider plant waved at Shelly. It was in that instant that you glimpse the outside world before the bathroom door latches shut. As she eased down her zipper the image blazed…. 2) In the 27th hour Shelly imagined the city built of sugar cubes. As she mixed chocolate syrup […]
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Valentine
She removed the dagger. In the hopes that one day this symbol would become true love she inserted the tip of the blade into the soft flesh of the birch. She carved their initials together: J.K. + V.L. There is no rejection in the forest. A birch may sustain thousands of cuts without bleeding, but […]
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Valentine
She removed the dagger. In the hopes that one day this symbol would become true love she inserted the tip of the blade into the soft flesh of the birch. She carved their initials together: J.K. + V.L. There is no rejection in the forest. A birch may sustain thousands of cuts without bleeding, but […]
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The poet washes dishes
It took several hours. There were spaces in the cookware of which no one was aware, save the poet. The soft downturn of the ladle handle soared and fell like the epic point guard’s final jump-shot as the seconds die away…. Water turned from periods to semi-colons and, finally, ellipses. If the sponge was wrung-out […]
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Cutting heads
Tuck was troubled by this thought: The Devil doesn’t visit us all. And the next: What if I don’t recognize him when he does? But he would. He knew it. There was a real shifty looking dude at Aces Down last week. Haunted the table by the bar all night long, but come set break […]
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How Simon created God
God did not exist, so Simon decided to create him. Basing it on the earlier model, his first design was erected purely out of ideas. The A Model was an omniscient multi-tasker. However, Simon’s inability to comprehend the motives of its parallel processing skills stalled the project at the design phase. Dismayed but not deterred, […]
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Left to his own devices
It took Milton a solid week to get the lipstick just right. The edges can be hard to cover. He traced lips he had decided were quite full, pouty almost, with patience; left them glistening moist without blotting. In the background the message played loudly over stereo speakers: Welcome to the voice messaging service. Please […]
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Walk. Run.
He kept coming home sweaty. That was the first clue that something was amiss. But Melanie knew the way it worked: They don’t come home sweaty from the tarts, they come home too soapy clean and groomed for the end of the day. That wasn’t Donald. His Oxfords were soaked through. His slacks wet at […]
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Hello, my name is Larry
I am a man of few bad habits, but those that I do have I practice with zeal. Acquaintances may describe me as stunningly damaged. I am a home. I mean I own a home. It is full of my possessions, tables and chairs and the like. I avoid other things. I have a picture […]
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Fulfilled
Anton and I grew up in a small periwinkle house with the highest house number in America. It was official. In the record books. Men with hats and cameras would come periodically to take our photograph in front of it and ask us what it was like living there, having to address letters and so […]
