To begin with, you must drink. Drink and drink and drink until your thirst is satisfied but of course your thirst is never satisfied. If you swallowed the whole ocean your thirst would not be

February the First, 2010

Hello my friends. As many of you have heard on the news, I have decided to pay the Russian Space Program 20 million American dollars to fly me to the moon. It’s been a

You pop your cherry on top of a cliff at sunset, with a rainbow shooting from the roof and a cream soda tingling in its can on the dash. He is named Nick and he’s totally unreal. You neck for an

The first time I got in trouble for telling the truth it was a Monday when I was seven and my teacher asked us what we had done over the weekend. I told her that I’d spend it in bed with my dad

Bridget stands close to the speakers, too close, feels the bass of them pound through her chest, a drumbeat, a makeshift heart.  Owen stands next to her, tall pine, a foot above her.  She feels the

He was on the TV again. That pudgy-faced man strutting up and down the stage. Preaching about the downfall of the species. Working himself up again until he got down on the balls of his knees and

The Obituary of Alexey P.

Alexey P. is startled to find his obituary in the morning paper. His eggs cool. The pulp congeals in his OJ. Nearly every line is aboutTetris, how he created it in

The sky burned down last week. The ground is still covered in the charred remains of clouds and bird feathers, black snow. The crisscrossing metal girders that once held up the sky are now readily

My sister found a baby goat in the bathroom at McDonald’s last night.  It was right after closing and it was just Melissa and the assistant manager, a shaggy-haired guy named Kyle who was

We'd survived the rope bridge, the dangling, the torn muscles in Miriam's shoulders. We'd survived and dusted off our luggage and laid our fine things in their cabinets. We held open the door

This girl asks me to hold her baby while she goes to the bathroom. We met just this second at the library. I don’t like to deal with crying people, her eyes all red and desperate, so I take

In Russia there are so many Russians! It’s like one of those neighborhoods where a bunch of Russians live, but way bigger. This place is big. It’s like they took a country the size of Russia and

A man on the blue line inbound from Wonderland scratches a lottery ticket. He stands, holding it cupped in his palm like a compass, uses a nickel from wherever. Here is my life, he thinks, flicks

Outside, it’s raining fishes.  The clouds are as black as cauldrons and tree branches are collapsing from the weight of all the fish gob-smacking into them, and I’m just thinking something’s gone

The drought has been going on for so long that there's a separate number to call for grass fires. You can't call 911 anymore, so you dial 411 and instead of asking for an address or a phone number,

The men with the chainsaws scrambled in the trees. The boy sat across the street, his bike by his side. The earth shook with each dropped limb. A few leaves clung to the branches, the limbs’

Jed needed beer. It was late and we had driven by three closed liquor stores. I had a sore throat. I said we should just go to the Walgreens near his apartment.

“Really? You can’t buy

We figure the leaves will find a way back into the house, where they take more than their share of furniture. The smell of ruin and the lack of rain outside has not permeated the house yet. That

Mutiny is the last I remember.  being pitched over.  only to awaken here.   drowning in an Aeron chair.  typing my own ransom memo for the corporate pirates who pay me in somnambulistic days. 

I am a fifty foot and two inch panda monster. It’s time for my sacrifice. If it’s not there, then it’s time to rampage through the village. I live out in the woods, a deep ancient forest, trees

A waterslide in the middle of the ocean’s a big project. I mean, it’s a pretty enormous project. It was the board of trustees’ idea to situate the thing out in the Pacific Basin, where Canada curls

1. The Netherlands 0 – Argentina 16
July 18, 1978 World Cup Final

The Dutch side were hamstrung when they were informed just minutes before the game that a new equal rights ordinance passed

We were in the middle of an epidemic of extrasensitive hearing. We walked around with our ears swollen and red, or lay in bed trying not to hear. We only whispered anymore, an ear-shaking whisper,

Since Cape of Good Hope

Terry was here with the AIDS people, but I was just visiting. I didn’t know I needed a break until the phone calls from Terry began, calls about native African pussy and

In the old yard adjacent the high school sat a green-metal box that housed an emergency generator. At least we always said it did, though I’ve unlearned plenty since those days. Used to we’d hang