Oblivion

A short story I decided not to submit to magazines.  It will be included in my third story collection, Living the Dream.   There was nothing. I told myself I just wanted to get out for a while. I went to the Post Office Bar with Elka and had some drinks. Elka wasn't quite five feet... Continue Reading →

Other Constellations

No reasons. No consistency or explanations. Just the frozen dark, the hiss, Marion snoring in the seat beside me, mouth open. And the thought of all that water below us. I try to remember getting on the plane. I look at my face in the black window. In the glass beside my reflection, I see... Continue Reading →

Bora Bora

I'm watching my father from the mezzanine of the Chicago Hilton. He's sitting in the lobby with a prostitute and they're both drunk. She looks like she's providing a GFE, a “girlfriend experience”—what passes for one in her price range. Laughing, poached beet red from booze and sun, she sits on his lap, slips off,... Continue Reading →

Harmful if Swallowed

Your eyes are closed. And a voice repeats itself: if you can’t eat, you need to sleep. “If you can’t sleep, you need to build something. Something edifying and engrossing. A sculpture. A sculpture that will take you out of yourself and release your attachments.” The voice of Dr. Bentley Philips, your wife’s psychiatrist. He... Continue Reading →

Distance Learning

  “Anyway, I think if we route the grant money into the primary fund we’ll be alright. Actually, we’ll be more than alright as long as we don’t spend another dime before fall.” Merton Swinn, the English department’s most recent acquisition, took a measured sip of brandy without blinking or looking away from Van Adler,... Continue Reading →

The Catherine Wheel

I first noticed the wolf in East Africa. Heard of brothers fighting and killing each other outside Makamba, daughters poisoning fathers in Goma, laughing while their houses burned, and everywhere the ritual of suffering enacted with a kind of desperate abandon. So I knew it had come around to this once again: an axe age,... Continue Reading →

Ex Inferis

Astrid went up the spiral stair and, keeping her knees bent, made her way to the back corner of the deserted observation deck where her mother sat knitting and frowning at Nebraska. “This state is endless,” her mother said, an expression of abject disgust in the turned-down corners of her mouth. “And boring. I have... Continue Reading →

Ghetto Fabulous

On the second day of the third week of the fifth month of her marriage, she already wanted to kill him. It was after the pills, after the night cab to the airport, after the restaurant fit. He didn’t give a damn. It was November. She bought a whip. She started smoking. She changed her... Continue Reading →

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