Recovery

After draining the toilet I put everything in the toilet. I drank a bottle of cough syrup and went outside. The cat spoke to birds. The birds spoke to bees. The bees spoke to me. They

Did you eat?

Yes.

There’s carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

Oh, good. I’ll have some later.

And walnuts.

Good.

How was work?

A man in Oklahoma was googling ‘carbon

Look at me.

Look at all the neat things I can do. Can you do this?

Follow me. Do like I'm doing. Put your stomach flat on the floor, then – whoa! – see what I'm doing? It's the worm. I can

Luis was walking home from work one evening when a man stepped in front of him, blocking his way on the sidewalk.

The man was dressed in a black coat and he was wearing a tan hat.

“I have

The afternoon we chose the new chief of Cyclops Island, we stood in a circle at the top of the isle’s highest peak, heads drooping, as we squinted and sweated in the sun. The chief had positioned

Exposing your teeth is mandatory in these situations, and if you don’t show your teeth it is at least subconsciously noted, questions are being asked in the back of the other person’s mind. Where are this guy’s teeth? Is he ashamed of them?

Wednesday morning, I grew a third eye, and no one had the basic human decency to look the other way. 

Gene is fluent in Klingon, comfortable even with the tricky irregular conjugations of the stative verbs

The donkey got loose at about noon. 

The weekend in Portland, Oregon, had been our first vacation without kids in almost five years, and I'd had this vision that my wife and I would feel unshackled and adventuresome again.

Roxana and Robert are in therapy because they argue: about the baby, about the laundry, about therapy, and about therapy, too.

The rent-paying, however, would be largely theoretical: his savings long since spent, he would be using the money she and her husband endlessly credited him without interest

Can you teach an eighteen-year-old trauma? 

Imaginary Audience, who is messing with whose head? Can therapy make one worse than one was before going in?

Pretty girls appeared from behind huge wooden poles below the boardwalk.

It’s an uphill battle to transition to a lifestyle of blunt objects.  

We all laugh, hard, and keep reaching for more laughter deep in our heavenly bodies because it distracts us from thinking the same thing: God is slipping.

One night your boyfriend sleepwalks to the kitchen and brings a handful of M&Ms back to bed. You wake to bleary chocolate splotches on the sheets. You’re annoyed because they’re your nicest

After Pete and his daughter Aya finished the course work to become certified masseuses, they entered the hotel meeting room for the final exam, which began with the instructor asking the entire

Spring was flipper-fitting season for young Olympic hopefuls like Jeannie. Although it was only March, Jeannie already had her gill implants; Dr. Rickman, a leading expert in the field of

Peter first met (well, you know. "Met.") Leona when he was five years old. It would be thirty years before he would spend every austral summer counting penguins on a tiny field station in

Antarctica wants you dead.

The research scientists bundle you up in outside-resistant clothing and put you outside the insulated walls of the research station. Your feet sink into the dry white

She had different stories for different people.

“Lost it in a hunting accident.”

“Shot off in the war.”

“Born without it.”

“Bandsaw.”

“Woodchipper.”

“Gangrene.”

Each

“I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.” 

-- Anton Chekhov

“When I dance, the stage shakes with my weight.

Betty crossed her yard and our street and my yard holding a bundle of mail.