We occupied the café, waiting, as always waiting, bathed in music constantly spinning from the Wurlitzer 1015, the Bubbler, the smells of bacon and coffee ever present. We waited on doom, on disaster, on mobilization to rescue the hapless. We… Continue Reading
She kept coming back as a dog. Her eyes would open, her tail would wag, and she’d immediately think— Again? She returned as big dogs, small ones, fancy and mutt-like ones. Each time, each incarnation, she came back like a… Continue Reading
I’ll readily admit that I was drunk the first time I saw my wife’s ghost. My friends had taken me to O’Shaughnessy’s after Karen’s funeral, and yes, I was planning on getting solid, blackout drunk. What I wasn’t planning on,… Continue Reading
Bucky is late again. This ticks me off, since I have to cover for him. Yes, I’m the best waitress this dive has ever seen, but a bartender I’m not. What did you expect? I ask myself. After living with… Continue Reading
The third year of drought left Birdie motherless and mute. For months she’d listened as her parents argued over water, whether small reserves should go to mama’s flower business or the horses. In the end, as hard as it would… Continue Reading
Nestled into his red clay divot, Sebastian aimed the green laser pointer high into the clear night, and a rocket ship of light launched from the desert scrub. He squinted as he followed the rocket’s luminescent green contrail up to… Continue Reading
He hated to be here. The stalls were uneven, some narrow, some wide, some with a draw curtain, many with a rope stretched side to side with hanging rags on that rope as a door front. Many looked like they… Continue Reading
Deep in the concrete bowels of the Tate Modern, I grow large and choose my form. I become strips of aluminium, curved into arches, then glued together, banded into long cylinders. When I am ready and no one is looking,… Continue Reading
Tucked away in some little-known corner of time, there once was a glassblower who lived by the sea. In the daring years of his youth, the glassblower would pull all kinds of strange and wonderful shapes from out of colored… Continue Reading
Not everyone could see the Death Hunter, but Martha had the gift. When the clouds first gathered on the low desert horizon that year, she knew: He was close. Her mother would have called it her ‘ghost-notion’, and crossed herself… Continue Reading