In the dark room, the computer screen...

Between beeps and coughs, he begged to be unplugged, begged for them to let his fluid tanks run dry.

Previously on...
Part 1  ||  Prologue

The dog ran alongside me for about twenty yards, then I hit it. Or maybe it hit me. I still don’t know. I felt sick.

Swans, in orbital silence, garble questions...

I no longer have that lime green vibrator.

Picture a baby shower.

“This one’s kind of a dud,” he said, turning the page. “It’s fine, but I’m not sure where it goes.”
“That’s like me on this path,” she said.
“It’s really not.”

I should tell you I used to be in an imaginary band...

I mistook a plastic bag...

In a long baseball season, there’s always the question of whether any one game matters

Read Kevin Mahler's Introduction to his ongoing 5-part "Portrait Series Paralleling Characters in HBO’s... more

Tom Cruise is one of life’s winners. He felt the need, the need for speed, and singlehandedly saved America from those Soviet planes, or something—honestly you never understood what was going on in the second half of Top Gun. In A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruise he couldn’t handle the truth, but Jack Nicholson was quite wrong.

Horace Guy Womack was in the employ of four different Major League teams across five seasons, a serviceable... more

Winner of the 2019 Hot Lincoln Statue Poetry Contest

The best wrestler he'd ever seen.

I will take an infestation, but only if it won’t spread.

"American Royals" and "Jenny"

Kathy doesn’t know the band but she wants to know me more. 

Like many youngsters of the era, this author lived in fear that these bees would descend upon his town by the thousands and sting everyone to death. 

I wandered around Sam Goody, more likely keeping track of my ABCs than taking inventory of the... more

You look like a zombie who’s just seen a ghost, the mirror mouthed back. 

to Mrs. Burrell

When Ms. Griffin was fired, my mother said 
it was because she... more

Cut it out, will you? This too-clever stratagem cuts no ice with me. Whereupon her lover cut across the stone field, balancing an embarrassment... more

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” I whisper, “the Lord is with thee.”

“The Lord doesn’t give a crap about us coloring eggs,” says Bee.

She didn’t look mad, but she was something. She was moving slow-fast like a cat, something I’d never witnessed, like I could feel how fast she wanted to go but wasn’t going.