“You didn’t have to come with me, Sam. I’m okay.” Sam handed me the challah I’d made the day before, wrapped in a cloth. He’d always scared me a little bit, tall and athletic and proud. He looked like the… Continue Reading
Malcolm ‘Stakeman’ Gribble didn’t look like a vampire hunter. He looks like someone who lives in their mother’s basement, thought Aneira, as she watched him eat through the roadside diner’s misted window. He had long, greasy brown hair, milk bottle… Continue Reading
The sun is stuck. The golden coronal flares tickle the orange clouds that hover over the horizon, but it refuses to climb any higher. The colors stretching across the sky are a painting in soft pastels, and the perfect wave… Continue Reading
I was eleven years old when I learned that penguins, in fact, are incapable of flight. It may seem like a mundane — even embarrassing — revelation, but to me, it changed the course of my life. Five years prior… Continue Reading
Rain thrashes against the window of Kay’s office. Her phone vibrates, clattering on the polished wood of the desk. Text from Brett. “Survive the rain?” The corner of her mouth twitches. She looks out towards the window, trying to remember… Continue Reading
The flowers glow against the pewter light of a soggy spring. You regard them with distaste. Your feet smack against the pavement, thud, thud, thud, aggravation weighting your steps. You do not want to go. You do not want to… Continue Reading
Katie’s fingers shook as she opened the chocolate box and offered the selection to Phil. It’d been a while since she’d used this test, reserved only for third dates. The final compatibility check. After a string of bad hook-ups, her… Continue Reading
Following a series of bone-deep budget cuts, the fire department was severely underfunded, so much so that the firefighters couldn’t afford to maintain basic equipment. Rather than extinguish the flames as usual, the firefighters’ only option was to gather up… Continue Reading
The little boy was alone, playing Cowboys-and-Indians outside, when the deputies came. He was six years old. He was pretending to be a cowboy, an outlaw, taking life and land from the Indians, from the innocent. The white jeep came… Continue Reading
The problem with friendships was the invisible boundary lines and the unscripted definitions that everyone seemed to understand. Everyone except Thelma, who found them mystifying. It hadn’t always been so complicated. On her first day at school, Jenny Smith sat… Continue Reading