I cupped my face in my hands and exhaled slowly, sweat dripping from flushed skin. My hair hung from my scalp like golden seaweed, swaying gently in the sun. I felt sick. The sun filtered in through the blinds like baked color, a slather of...
First her husband went, then all the flowers in the garden followed. I felt bad for her, you know? You try to be friendly in this neighborhood, get to know the people who live only a few feet away from you in any direction. You try...
When you have been a priest for as long as I have, you start to notice patterns in people. When a parishioner approaches, I can already guess what they want to ask me by their body language or the way their eyes flicker to meet...
I walked into that office an’ wiped some dirt an’ sweat off a my head with my arm. The office was as white as a laundry mat with one desk an’ two chairs in front of it. A fat man in glasses with a pencil...
06“They told me you were experienced in harsh waters,” James said, as he pointed out the pearls of sweat that had formed on my forehead. “Yeah, I do,” I replied, moments before hurling the remnants of a less-than-appetizing lunch, off the side of our ship. “It’s just...
How do I even begin to tell you about the...
Part One: The Beginning I’m calling it Black Vein Blues. It makes sense if you think about it. About a month ago it started, slow and quiet. I had just come home from school to find my father prodding at the corpse of a gator that washed...
I died for the first time on the 18th of August, 2006. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant death, nor was it one that I expected. It was simply the random act of violence that destroyed my life...
ENTRY 1 My name is Jason. I live in the suburbs of a small city on the east coast. I’m not sure I want to say where exactly. Something is happening and I think it’s important for me to write this down. I live alone in...
The bones arrived on a Friday, in a pine crate the size of a steamer trunk. “Is that it, Mr. Evans?” Eliot asked, his tone lacking awe. The rest of the earth science class conversed in whispers or stared out the row of bay windows overlooking...
Mortality is a weird thing. It hits you like a bag of bricks once you make it to your late twenties or early thirties. It’s about the time when your family starts getting diagnosed with all kinds of disease, heart attacks, strokes, cancer… For me, facing...
I watched as my son splashed around in the waves, the sun reflecting off the cool green water. Sean laughed as the waves crashed around his ankles and chased him up the shore. The ocean then pulled away, leaving trembling patches of sea foam that...
Once your time on this Earth ends, Death will greet you like an old friend. Whether you embrace it with fear, hatred, or acceptance, is a question that cannot be answered before you stand at its door. I can’t tell you what comes next, nor can...
Hello. If you’re listening to this then I’ve been found, and there will be questions. Oh yes, questions aplenty. I’m sure the first of which will be ‘Why?’ And that is a great one to start with but it’s also the one which doesn’t have an answer....
I lie on my bed, staring at my sliding glass door. It was late, probably well past midnight. I couldn’t sleep. That seemed to be a recurring issue ever since I moved into my new apartment two weeks ago. It was a small studio apartment,...
“All you have to do is submit,” he says, while taking another calm sip from that damn coffee cup while crossing his legs. It’s steaming, but he makes no expression of discomfort while taking a generous swig from the shining porcelain. There isn’t a straight...
“Hey, Red. Bum a smoke?” She was standing by the vending machines, so still I almost walked right past her without noticing. Blame it on highway hypnosis; I’d been driving for hours with nothing to focus on except miles of cornfields and the pavement ahead of...
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I reached for it, only half-listening to the sales meeting I was in. My boss was rattling on, stressing about how we needed to push numbers, increase our revenue, the usual slog. The other eight salesmen around the table...
Is this thing on? I see the light blinking, so I guess I’m good. My name is Roy Harrison, and I was Sheriff of Bush County, Texas for nearly forty years. I suppose I’ve got a story to tell. A story about a city named Ashwood...
When I was a kid, my mom thought the world was a very dangerous place. It wasn’t just her, either – all parents seemed afflicted with this strange mania that made them believe around every dark corner, in any shadow lurked something unspeakable ready to...
