Before I was fired from Pinnacle Heating & Air, my boss had me drive to Limon to pick up the most expensive heat pump on the market at his other store.  I almost felt bad for the guy he was

Ethan’s virtual shrink said this would be good for him. It’s his first time in a human touch center, even though they’ve been popping up across America since the late 2030s. A place to feel

The Mortadella

Sometimes when my husband and I argue he eats mortadella from the refrigerator.  Other times he does not.

Rubenesque

There is a term for women of my wife’s size, a

Two days before Halloween I caught my wife having sex with my best friend Dave in a position we’d never tried in seven years of marriage. She had a good explanation—she didn’t love me anymore. I

Nelson stands on the corner of two major intersections in Springfield. He stands inert, periodically blinking as if waiting for something to happen to him. Cars pass by and street lights flicker on

Good morning. Vincent Peppers here and I just thought this day is a grave. Terrible words to have running through your head this early, but I can’t help it. I’m waiting for a scheduled 11 am

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

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

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