“Passing” was the verb we employed to describe the act of traveling to the other side. Passing was a thrill, a gorgeous kind of terror held within tight bounds. Permission to look at another world, one frightful and uncharted, all the while tethered safely to our own by seat belts and vigilant adults anchored to steering wheels.
Read MoreNAME: Niebyl, Owen
POSITION: Bus Driver
SCHOOL(S) SERVED: San Dieguito Union High School District
Read MoreIt wasn’t Alicia’s catechism teacher, her mother, or even her sister who taught Alicia the truth about God’s grace and the redemptive power of skin robes. It was her stepfather, Larry McBride.
Read MoreWhen I was young and gawky I rode a bicycle everywhere I went and defaulted to happiness. In spite of midnight beatings for breaking my glasses, the threat of nuclear war, and revelations about the specter of a silent spring, my disposition remained relentlessly sunny.
Read MoreThere’s an animal outside my window. It’s looking at me. I was just doing nothing here at the kitchen table, scrolling through shit on my phone, trying to beat this insomnia, crying again for some unknown reason, and then HEY!
Read MoreOn her first day of her new job a man wearing a kilt and smoking a cigarette showed Isobel Bennett to her cubicle. She briefly fantasized she was being recruited by the C.I.A., but it was probably some sort of not-for-profit. She didn’t care what they did as long as it wasn’t a scam.
Read MoreOf the dozen buildings slouched riverward in Near Haven shipyard, only Stearns Fiberglass let on that it might be occupied. The bait company, canvas supply, machine shops, and all else sat dark under their corrugated aluminum roofs, while at Stearns a floodlight watched the empty yard and a dull blue flicker lit the windows.
Read MoreNo one does what he does. No one does what he does where he does it or within the sound of his shouting voice. No one does for anyone what he does for everyone who wants him to do it. No one.
Read MoreEmmeline felt it finally, that wonderful expansion that came with a couple drinks. The spaces between her words. The width of her smile. She felt it all, along with the gaze of the man on the other side of the yard, looking down his beer bottle at her as he drank.
Read MoreLife was better before I could Speak with Dead. When I could only Cure Light Wounds once, twice a day? Those were the best times. Little miracles. That’s where it’s at.
Read MoreAnaza dies on June 2nd. But on that day, he will walk into Aunty Orahachi’s bar and buy drinks for young men who are tired of looking for white collar jobs, who cut grass in homes where all the virile adult men have gone off to big cities…
Read MoreThere are some of you, and you know who you are, who will never set foot inside a robot whorehouse. There are some of you, and I won’t name names, who have decided that places like At Your Leisure, no, they’re just not for you.
Read MoreBurns pauses, lets the sock drop onto his loafer, and lays down on the bed. He can hear Sarah in the bathroom, the shower shutting off and the water pick starting up.
Read MoreYou told me I was crazy —yes, you did; don’t you remember when we were traveling through North Thailand on the sleeper; I could hear you rolling over on the bottom bunk — “Listen,” you said, “I think you might need help” — and I couldn’t even respond; I was so mad
Read MoreIt was fall and my brother Aaron was in an Elvis phase. Every Saturday he would wake our sister Jeanie up and she would kneel in front of him on the bed and slick his hair back with Vaseline and paint sideburns down to his chin with magic marker.
Read MoreIt was out along Cold River Road where I first encountered that owl. I’d finished up my shift at Green Mountain Power and it was getting dark–was getting darker, in fact, earlier each day that time of year…
Read MoreHe’s tall, the tallest guy I’ve ever been with, structured face, stubble on his chin, runner’s build, practices yoga.
He balances a blanket under his arm, a bottle of white wine and two glasses, and nods at the large plate he set for us, filled with cheeses and meats and crackers and olives and all of these things I see in restaurants but never actually order…
Read More10-Piece 2.25"-10.25" Glass Nesting Bowl Set / “Nesting set of 10 includes a size for every task.”
There’s something infinitely pleasing about nesting bowls, how they fit into each other like round, glass Matryoshka dolls.
Read MoreIn the four months since production had been indefinitely halted, the airship Ishtar’s naked keel had taken on the skeletal aspect of a beached and rarefying whale.
Read MoreTonight, neither of us are in our own bodies. In fact, no one here will ever be. But everyone still likes to talk about how unnerving it is to be outside themselves, to adjust to their new bodily possessions over tentative sips of cheap red wine.
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