Category Archives: fiction

Heaven Always Has Room

Wish List: I once worked with a tall drink of water named Christopher J. McSpinch. I’ll always remember that unusual name. He was a nice, polite guy and I liked him. We worked for a company called Intelillink Communications. Don’t bother looking it up, it’s long gone. It was merged into oblivion.  My duties includedContinue reading “Heaven Always Has Room”

The Active Training Sessions

The Active Training Sessions ended with the summer and Jacob hadn’t learned a goddamn thing. Ninja skills dulled. He would meet an attack with clumsy, uncertain moves. Hesitation begets paralysis. Hanging around deserted shopping malls (they’re easy to break into if you possess what old grandfathers referred to as gumption) watching mildew grow in patternsContinue reading “The Active Training Sessions”

Telekinetic Kelly

Kelly Green raised the red flag on her mailbox all the way from the kitchen. She didn’t even have to look out the window this time. She accomplished the feat while sitting at the table eating instant oatmeal.  The oatmeal was hot and she liked it thick. It was flavored with brown sugar and mapleContinue reading “Telekinetic Kelly”

The Source of My Anxiety

My wife Susan had a dark streak. She carried herself like the pampered aristocrat she was but insisted she was a Surrealist. She actually told people that. “What do you do?” they’d ask. “I’m a Surrealist,” she’d say. She made Duchampian readymades. I, myself felt like a writer. Susan made things. I made things up.Continue reading “The Source of My Anxiety”

The Crooner

The Crooner sat alone in his dressing room. He’d draped an old, stained tablecloth over the mirror and had unscrewed most of the light-bulbs around the frame. Dressing room lights were always too bright and the mirrors captured too many hard memories. He wore his life on his face. He lifted a pint of whiskeyContinue reading “The Crooner”

Buried Skeletal Remains

The Day Before Thanksgiving I am tromping across a frozen swamp this morning, foraging for scatterberries. The gunmetal gray sky is loaded with unreleased snow. It’s predicted to begin lavishing deep inches of the powdery stuff over the whole region today. The heavy hush and stillness that precedes a snowstorm always strikes a rhapsodic chordContinue reading “Buried Skeletal Remains”

The Peptic Lethargy of the Urban Werewolf

There was a tiny nagging snag at the back of Ben’s brain that the werewolves at the Gubbio, Ohio McDonald’s were hairy hallucinations brought on by his black-market baldness remedy.   He’d been swallowing this new drug called Talbexia Arpablast, a supposedly effective cure for male-pattern hair loss. It had not been fully tested or approvedContinue reading “The Peptic Lethargy of the Urban Werewolf”

Imagining the Ordinary

It started with the teabags, but before that. It’s hard to be certain when an adventure really begins but if I had to stick a pin into a point and make a mark, it wouldn’t be with the worms, it would be with the teabags. Memories bleed into dreams. Or is it the other wayContinue reading “Imagining the Ordinary”

Violets and Gasoline

It started before the stabbing began. Paleontologists were puzzled by the ancient signs of aberrant behavior they discovered in the underwater tunnels but they had to follow the fossil evidence no matter the cost to humanity’s dubious reputation. Fresh scuba gear was distributed like missionary medicine to the five finalists. Then it was time toContinue reading “Violets and Gasoline”