In a Soho bistro, a young couple sit in the wan London sun. He is drinking a cappuccino and looking forlorn. She is eating a cheese and tomato sandwich and falling in love with the thinly sliced tomato as it caresses her tongue.
Read MoreDear Mr. Buckneffer,
I am writing to let you know that a petition has been circulated in regards to adding another member to our diverse intellectual team here at Distinct Designs, Inc. I am the one who started this petition.
We found out that our computer ran on magic. Mom and Dad had said it was supposed to be electricity that computers ran on, before we’d bought it and brought it home. But that day the computer started running before we could plug it in.
Read MoreI met Peter online. I mean, he sent me an email, and from that moment I knew I had to help him. It was such a touching story. About how he couldn't trust his family. About the car crash that killed his wife and kids. The esophageal cancer. It wasn't just about the money.
Read MoreThere was a time when everything I owned fit precisely into a Volkswagen Rabbit. It took some thought—laundry bags instead of baskets, one good purse, versatile shoes. And closing the hatchback required a few attempts with some rearranging in between.
Read MoreThose in the cathedral district knew Azul DePerila as the transient who called himself a bishop, a man who wandered the neighborhood at all hours. On Wednesday night of Holy Week, he was outside Christ the King as the moon shone between twin spires, covering the memorial garden in a band of light.
Read MoreWhen Teenie lumbered into view with the baby carrier on her chest, I had to stop myself from bawling. I didn’t really believe there was a baby in there—we had only started “trying” last month—but the sight of that half-price Butterball turkey bulging from the sling was almost enough to get me going. These days, it didn’t take much.
Read MoreOf course every time I attempt to explain the nature of my house arrest to myself, I inevitably allow for great expanses of opinion, mostly my opinion, which should not be regarded as in any way legal—despite my superior mental firepower I am no expert of the laws prohibiting the Alleged Transgression. Which is in large part why I am here. This room is nice on most days.
Read MoreEach day the black eye was duller. I thought it was clouds but with the next sun the globe was more gray, as if dusted with sand, staring past me toward the sky. On the third morning as I went my path the bees parted her lashes to drink from the eye, as if to sting her back to sight.
Read MoreSoon as I get home from my shift at Marketplace Solutions, Ryan’s all over me about the MOOC. He refuses to go ahead on his own because the MOOC is something he wants to do as a team on account of eventually we want to be business partners, so his thinking is that by taking the course together we’re not only learning Entrepreneurship 101 or whatever, we’re also learning about each other…
Read MoreMegan Jeffries moved past the smokers and angled her body away as if they reached for her hands. When offered help, she shook her head no thank you. Using the left side of her body, she shoulder-pushed through the revolving door, clutching the cupcakes to her chest, and rode the elevator to the ninth floor. Her sweating only got worse in the air conditioning.
Read MoreI was eight when my parents started leaving me home alone. As a CPA, my father handled the financial operations for the municipality of Hialeah Gardens. He and my mother often went to dinner parties with the chief of police, his lackeys, the mayor, and his lackeys.
Read MoreShe has a harelip and we only have hate sex.
It’s winter and everything is desperate. We sit on the side porch and listen to a fisher cat tear into a fox pup.
Read MoreIt took ten squirts of Love’s Baby Soft on each wrist to make the scent last all day, but all 25 plaid-skirted girls in my homeroom had been seduced by the same ads, the ones that showed a girl caressing a horse’s muzzle or lounging in a field of flowers, sucking a lollipop.
Read MoreThe train is crowded today, everyone takes up twice as much room as usual in their floor-length trenches and barrel-busted down-filled parkas, plaid scarves glistening with bright beads that have already forgotten their crystalized earthward hurtle.
Read MoreI had just spent the last six months unemployed, sitting on my couch in my eighty-degree Seattle apartment, hammering away at my Netflix queue. I rarely went out for drinks or dinner in an effort to conserve cash. My government check was enough to cover my rent and bills with a little left over to stock up on Kraft Dinner and ramen noodles.
Read MoreMy old lady, my baby-baby comes home and tosses my ass out of bed. What I mean is my baby hoists the mattress up like a human forklift (she’s got some killer thighs, man) until—me, already on the edge—I go a tumbling to the carpet.
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