Sam and Katie dash into the surf. They are four and six and so full of life it breaks Anna’s heart. She’s walking twenty yards behind them. Her husband, Jim, trudges along beside her. “Don’t go out too far,” Anna… Continue Reading
Petey had been pitching the baseball against the house for the last hour. He kept an eye on the street, watching for his father’s car. It would be too early for him to be getting home, but his father had… Continue Reading
In a virtual space designed to feel like a pickup bar, but I wish we’d seen each other across the ravaged land of the apocalypse. Rubble of the old life slowly decaying under warm light of the indifferent morning sun,… Continue Reading
When I was nine, my dad warned me about the dangers of dreaming. “You know, it’s like if you drink too much water, it shuts down the electrical connections and you just keel on over,” he’d said in his woodchip… Continue Reading
We had chosen our baseball teams in the alley behind our houses like always and started to walk down the block to the special lot, the one we still called our prairie; the only open space left in our neighborhood… Continue Reading
Every time my grandpa, my mother’s father, visited us he always brought a crate of fruits or vegetables, whatever he just harvested. I remember I was in second grade when he came by with the crate and asked how I… Continue Reading
40th reunion. 40. How did she get so old so fast? She was popular and had plans. A “most likely to…” type. Succeed. Be on TV. Own a beach house in La Jolla. She did none of that and didn’t… Continue Reading
First day of a new spring still dawns gray and drear, dampness lingering in the chill morning air, and this will persist, forecasters say, for several more. But then the sun, at last comes sun, yellow gold morning and evening,… Continue Reading
The lithe woman in a flowery muslin dress attacks her Olympia typewriter on her timeworn desk. Near an open window, a Fendt tractor rattles. The engine’s tack tack tack travels into the county office on a hot breeze. Dark eyes… Continue Reading
He pulled into the Chevron station in Orlando, looked left and noticed Clint Eastwood pumping gas into his Ford F-150 while Marilyn Monroe, perched in the passenger seat, applied lipstick via the rearview mirror. Moments later Elston pushed a shopping… Continue Reading