The Spelunking Phlebotomist

Turn on the small black ImageGrimⓇ and surf the sewage. Record the information as it arrives:  -Do Not Miss Out Ladies and Gentlemen- “I have the freedom to live now,” says the spelunking phlebotomist just before he enters the decrepit double-wide trailer. It is raining soft warm rain. Rural Mississippi rain. There is no electricityContinue reading “The Spelunking Phlebotomist”

Little Green Worms

Part One My intention was to write an exquisite, precise, highly-calibrated account of the time I arrived at a therapy appointment covered with little green worms. It was to be written in the 1st person with little parenthetical flourishes and jokes. It would build to a breathless climax and end with an ironic punchline. ButContinue reading “Little Green Worms”

“Joe Here.”

“Joe here,” was the way Joe answered the phone when he was behind his desk at the law offices of Sobchak & Sobchak.  “Joe here,” he’d say. Every single time. He never juggled anything up. He was staid and steadfast when it came to telephone etiquette.  Joe never flirted with variety. His delivery was deadpan, allContinue reading ““Joe Here.””

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”

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”

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”

Ptoth-15 and the City of Piss

A science fiction epic for the epoch! The One: Ptoth-15 moved with dwindling vigor across the ashen surface of the moon. He didn’t need to breathe anymore thanks to the (rather rushed) ritual at the Pillar of Pleura but his twin bladders both felt set to burst and if they started leaking their warm biogenicContinue reading “Ptoth-15 and the City of Piss”