Because I can tell it's going to be a crappy day at work I dress up as Virgin Mary with my blue silk dress and white head scarf and lemon drop halo that got coffee spilled on it so it's a little warped, but it will do for one day of selling shoes.

When Ettore was a boy, he dreamed of puppets hovering over his bed. 

What came next was one long show: broken strings, smashed microphones, guitar solos without boundaries or purpose, house parties with bands in the kitchen and bands in the attic, missing kick drum pedals, stolen snares, songs we couldn’t figure out how to end and we drifted inside them, lost within our own imaginations.

Z’s phone rang. He picked it up and said hello. The person on the other end asked if he was Dr. Schlesinger. After a pause, Z said, “Yes, this is he.” 

That statement, of course, being a lie. 

“Hello ma’am. I presume you are the lady of the house. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Basal and I believe that I have something you’ve lost – something you’d like to get back,” he

White light from the television brought me here.

Everything in this store is very far away from everything else in this store.

I pass razors and products containing ephedrine or

Day one, just a few hours in, and the first scratches from his insides, just a little suggestion: only a nibble.  He tries to kill the animal stuck there by gulping down water, by dousing it with

Many young novelists have been gravitating toward a movement known as the “Real Newism.” Adherents of the Real Newism assert that effective fiction requires “experiencing events.” And today, you

Buckhorn Golf Course

36 FM 473, Comfort, TX 78013

4 out of 5 stars

This place is a real gem. Just imagine the scene: The Buckhorn Golf Course opens up before you, revealing layer

When Rob sent out pictures of Sophia, innocuous prints of her at a bar or a party, he found himself getting pictures in return. These pictures he got were never family portraits or pictures with

I drove to the STD Clinic. I walked in and told a woman in an office through a window slightly larger than a fast food drive-thru window my name and appointment time. She handed me a clipboard with

You will forget by your fourth birthday these your shifting first memories—your father’s goats at their graze, their black tongues slathered across your face, the chickens prancing and clucking upon the dirt of the yard, the spare trembling grasses and the crazed droning song of the grasshoppers, their brown juices streaking the lines of your palm.

Don’t believe me if you want, but the hole just appeared one night.

In sandtiger bellies, the young eat the young. You could fit a new-hatched sandtiger pup in your hand, but you shouldn't; they are pink, squishy cartilage, knife-tip teeth, and only the first one survives, chasing siblings down uterine hallways: hide and seek to death. After eating all his brothers, the last one standing sucks yolk like CapriSun from his sharkmom's eggs. By the time the sharkmom gives birth, the pup is the size of a six year old child. 

It’s pity sex for both of us, me and Karen and her glass eye, in a motel room off the interstate.  

It is not easy to remove a heart with a spoon from the chest of a man, nor is it clean. The spoon was purchased 48 hours earlier from the Bed, Bath & Beyond on 9th Street. The Nicole Miller Moments 5 pc Flatware Set was $24.99. The salad fork, dinner knife, dinner fork, and soup spoon were disposed of. Only the teaspoon remained.

The first time my neighbor's place burned to the ground, I wasn't his neighbor, but he told me about it.  

My Spanish was always too slow to impress my father. I tried not to learn it to spite him. But  that was like not swallowing water in your mouth when there’s no place to spit it out. 

Good evening. I just ate eggs. Breakfast for dinner, is what Robin called it. Is there such a thing as dinner for breakfast? I’m sure some jabony has fired-up a cheeseburger and fries at 8 a.m.,

Let’s follow Holger home, they said, and burn his house down.

We were under the bridge. We were trolls; we were engineers. We were MacGyvering a raft for the rat we’d rescued last night. Clumps

The value of a cash gift is on its face, and that, in some circles, is the value of the giver.  But excuse me, the value of a $130 vegetable peeler is $5.99.

Have you traveled abroad?  I’m sure

Carnie lives among piles of porcelain and Tupperware in a storage locker near Conneaut. She lost her job at the prison and then her house was foreclosed upon. Most of the practical things she owned

EVERY DAY IS SUNDAY

I go to call her for the ribs recipe but then I think how she doesn't respond to my jokes so I go to text her instead. And what I say goes like this: you used to make

Stanley K owns a small radio shop on Forest Avenue in Lakewood. 

I walk in, having not seen him in 30 years. 

“Stanley!” I exclaim, “how are you?!” 

“For virtue of your smile, here!” he

I don’t know why, but until I went to her door our neighbor Marie hadn’t spoken to me in more than a year.  I usually only see her in passing, but when I do she keeps her head low and doesn’t look