It only takes seventeen minutes to realize that lifeguarding was not the career for me. Seventeen minutes. It isn’t the 5:15 AM alarm that did it. Or the gross vacuum I have to hook and drag out of the pool.… Continue Reading
Bugs and spiders scatter as he tugs open the creaking, wooden bulkhead doors and peers down into the darkness. “There’s a light at the bottom of the stairs,” she tells him. “Just feel for the string and give it a… Continue Reading
There were scales in the bathroom. Shell looked to the two blue towels already hanging with their limb-shaped patches of damp. Her dad and stepmother had had their showers already, and Shell felt two speeds in her heart. They had… Continue Reading
Friday night should have been disco night, but my footballer boyfriend decided it was break up night instead. Saturday morning Cockle picking with Joy. Head bent sifting those white shells from the mud, tears weren’t much use. It didn’t feel… Continue Reading
Her father, gulping his whisky, insisted the three puppies remain outside because “there is nothing cute about stepping in shit.” No one in the neighborhood saw the mother of the tiny dogs and most presumed she was dead. Some saw… Continue Reading
Spraying machine gun bullets lit up the hillside as Zhang dodged behind a rock to protect himself. His foe, the American 49th division, was fighting north of what would be later the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He had been drafted as… Continue Reading
After our closing, mail intended for the prior owners continued to arrive. At my wife’s suggestion, we hand printed “return to sender” and dropped the letters in the blue collection box near the Panera. The junk—the flyers, directories, advertisements—we tossed.… Continue Reading
Cuck0o88 said to close the lid on little Pippa. It felt a bit odd, but everyone clapped and I went for it. When Pippa first sniffed her new suitcase-turned-cushioned-bed, her tail wagged left-right-left-right, like a pendulum on meth. My lifeline,… Continue Reading
Walking in, I wing my arms and strum the strings that line the walls. Dan’s racked his guitars by resonance, tinny to golden. Discordant yet beautiful, jangles the hum, like a gateway to limbo. I’ve suggested he tune them to… Continue Reading
Home is where the heart is. That’s the saying my mother liked, cross-stitched and hung in the hallway. Now I wonder—if I don’t have a home, am I heartless? I was on the move, deciding to sleep in a real… Continue Reading