Shaving his neck to impress...

She imagined walking barefoot across the grass in the backyard, sitting in the hammock and reading that book her teacher from graduate school had published.

The landscape was a flat dimension, no mountains or hills. Farmland and ramshackle homes that looked like collages, you could see the years in them.

I saw her in front of us then, and she struck me: white parka down to mid-calf meeting white Ugg boots, white hood drawn over head.

Usually I’d just as soon look away from cruelty, but Lemuel flung that chicken square at my face and my first instinct was to swat her, fretting her clipped wings and shrieking like a raspy old woman, down on the heads of the others. Simple reflex.

We laughed when he called it a “Shake-n-Bake,” but then looked nervously around the room; the crew veterans weren’t laughing.

Charlie would never cannibalize me; he’d have nothing to eat. 

I posted a picture of my rarely used kayak on Facebook late at night.

This is the Santa crushing it on Etsy.

This is the Santa denied unemployment.

This is the Santa whose Zoom background brought his therapist to tears.

This Santa doesn’t give a shit—he’s a

First, I visited my father’s house. After I returned home, my mother asked me to bring her there in the dark of night. We got on the highway, drove north, then took the second exit, but that was all I

I’m now constructing a mental pool for how long these two can keep up the corporate veneer before they go insane or at least pop Gene in the teeth or at least say Okay you’re done no more pineapple and then whisk away the tray of pineapple Mom and I have not stopped noshing and ogling and noshing...

The holidays loom and I’ve got two weeks off work. Last Christmas was pretty quiet. Not much family left. Karen was the one with the big family. I enjoy the church service in the morning. The kids

Lee and Aiko made a deal; one last trip together. They could make it feel like the end of something, if that’s what it was going to be.

It was clear she had been here from the smell of wind in the room.

Dan disowned my sister and me via email a year ago

The seafood restaurant in my dreams closed down last night.

Margot and I had humped once, too, when I stopped by and Andrea wasn’t home.

I love beginnings. The clack of the wheels on a roller coaster climb, the smell of cotton candy and grease.

Why did Train A leave while Train B was still getting ready?

As Yoda sat on a tree stump, perfectly force-carved to complement his bony exterior and knobby joints, he realized that it had been five days in a row now that he had sat on this tree stump.

We know we are eels.

"He slept among a pile of used truck tires ..."

For as long as Mark could remember, he had wanted to save someone from a wolf. He had wanted it to happen in a specific way. Peculiar even.

I’m standing on top of Drew Barrymore’s star and the song’s issuing from a hot-purple Sony boom box someone set up a few feet away.

If you cut my leg and peel away the muscle, there’s a family living inside