We trekked out into the middle of this desert to find solitude. To “achieve greater introspective insight than we could have ever achieved in the real world,” as Jeff put it, was our goal. When there is no wind and no sound besides your own...
Growing up, my wife Rhea's best friend in life was her brother Evan. Even with the age and gender difference, they were kindred spirits. Out of millions of genetic possibilities, somehow, they were born with the same mental framework. He taught her how to ride...
“Goddammit!” Doc wobbles a moment as pain flares up his ankle. Catching himself, he shifts and shakes his right foot, stomping it once and then again on the uneven dirt path, but the sharp ache persists. “You okay?” Tessa’s hushed voice asks from somewhere close-by. “What the fuck...
There was always a pretty big homeless problem where I grew up. You’d see them with signs near off-ramps to the highway that asked for food or money, sometimes even in exchange for work. They’d rove in small gangs downtown, picking through dumpsters, begging for...
When I was young, I spent a few years volunteering for a local natural science museum. I worked my way up from general volunteer to reptile handler and eventually to the chemistry department doing all sorts of amazing experiments in live shows geared towards children. ...
It was my wife Marion and I’s first Halloween season without our son, David. He passed away unexpectedly at the beginning of February. We had been married for most of our adult lives, and David was born right at the start. He was our baby,...
There’s this joke that old-time musicians used to like to tell, but maybe now it’s only popular amongst us fiddlers: Q: How do you get a banjo player off your porch? A: You pay for your pizza. It’s just a bit of good-natured humor, but I don’t think...
She left me. Of course, she did; I’d have left me, too. I stared woefully with bloodshot eyes at my reflection in my rearview mirror, the cragged cracks of age as plain as the fireball red nose on my face as I drove through the back...
Holidays can be one of the busiest times of year for mental health services; but especially so for suicide hotlines. This was my first year on duty; as last year they gave me the day off. We didn’t have that option this year, too short-staffed....
Technology is changing at a rapid pace, so fast that some even say it’s frightening. I got a chance to experience this nightmare firsthand just a few weeks back when I was given the opportunity to test out a new autonomous vehicle for my company. At first,...
1978 With headlights off and through the rain-lashed windscreen and blackness of the night, Don didn't see the tree across his side of the road until it was nearly upon him. He put his foot hard on the brake and instinctively yanked the steering wheel, sending...
I’m not sure if he knows how little respect I have for him. He leans back in his chair, slowly placing his hands behind his head—making a meal of it—as though what is to follow is going to bring him great pleasure. The two rings under...
I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to sleep. Sleep has eluded me for several days at this point, but to sleep is to give up and let guilt destroy me. That’s what I call it anyway, guilt. It was as plausible an explanation as any...
His teeth crunched into another handful of spiders. The pimple popping nature of their exploding abdomens under his gnashing teeth made Jay sick to his stomach. The way too audible sound of the popping didn’t help either. “Looks like that’s another five spiders, Jay! You’re falling...
I recently bought a house in the country. I wouldn’t quite call it a country estate, but if someone else did, I wouldn’t disagree with them, either. The house covers a few thousand square feet, and it’s on 25 acres of land. Honestly, it’s a...
911 gets three kinds of calls. There’s the “someone needs help” call, obviously. That’s the sort that most of our training deals with, and it’s the kind that everyone pictures first when they think of 911. You could, if you wanted, subdivide these calls into...
I was seven years old when my brother Frank died in a fire. He was nineteen and a fireman and everything I ever wanted to be in the world. My parents told me that he’d died a hero, that he’d been inside a house saving...
I really, really hate Legos. Their little nubs and sharp corners fit perfectly right into the center of the bottom of your foot, causing a stabbing agony that lingers for the rest of the day with every step. I’d hoped I was done with them...
It was a late July night, and I once again found myself basking in the glow of my TV screen, a controller in one hand and a beer in the other. Empty pizza boxes, chip bags, and various other discarded remnants surrounded me as I...
It was an incredibly hot day when I heard the knock on my door. One of those days where you close the blinds and crank the AC, trying to find relief in darkness. It had been like that all week, each day growing more and...
