I was seven years old when it started with him, the thing he referred to as playing Sandy Duncan. He coined it when he found me sitting on a backyard swing, eating from a box of Wheat Thins. “Sandy Duncan endorses those things,” he said, …
Karachi, Pakistan I bumped into my old college chum Minocher the other day at a coffee shop, and to celebrate the reunion after thirty-three years, we decided to meet the next day by having dinner at my place. When I went to pick him up …
This morning, their routine of rising and preparing for the day in silence hurts her and presses as though her soul has changed its mind and now wants something else.
Dear mom and dad, The good news: Today I was promoted to Barrister, Second Class at the 134,567th Field Armored Starbucks. They gave me such a beautiful uniform: a tapered white shirt with a black bow tie, and black pants with the red stripes …
“There are Sweetmeats which rot the eater; in man’s nostrils Poison’d perfumes.” -John Webster 1 It was an early July evening, a Friday, about twilight, a Texas night, where the stars look so close you want to pluck them like lilacs from the black …
I don’t look in telescopes because what if I see something I’m not supposed to, like a UFO or a black hole or an incoming comet? I couldn’t enjoy the stars. I’d be too afraid look around because something could be out there ready to …
Mr. Cornelius Otter sat drinking beer with Mr. Wallace Beaver inside the River Bank Tavern. Otter lit a cigarette and shook his head. “Man,” he said to his friend. “I wish I had what you had.” “What, teeth that don’t stop growing?” Beaver shoveled …
Earlier in the fall, the white guy in maintenance with a lazy eye did me a good turn. On a Saturday morning, he knocked on my door on a routine inspection to see if everyone’s heat was working now that the boilers were on. He …
It was 3 o’clock, and the Store had lapsed into its familiar afternoon lull. Sarah sat behind the counter with an uncapped fountain pen in her hand. She touched the notepad with the pen tip and watched a generous ink spot bloom on the white …
Uneven asphalt was pinched against the baggy, dirty clothes of a bowling champion washout named Anton. Opening up his heavy eyes, Anton felt slightly disoriented as he saw the dark, filthy ground adjacently touching his face. He tried to quickly sit up, disgusted with the …