Bliss Miss
byShe’d made herself quite a pile selling chocolates with a moral center, but she’d tired of her customers who, once they’d acquired the taste, were loyal to a fault, and…
Archive
Two-Minute Warning
byI experienced my first heartbreak when I was nine years old. It wasn’t the passing of a relative, or any type of ill-fated puppy love. Rather, it was during the…
The Pronoun Wars
byDuring the second millennium, at various times and places, to speak the language one grew up speaking was made a capital crime by the powers-that-were. In the Languedoc region of…
Nobody’s Business
byWe were living like frat boys then. Empty pizza boxes on the floor. Beer cans in the trash instead of the recycling bin. Justin was too depressed to clean and…
Charlie Hustle
byMy first memory of Pete Rose was watching him play on my family’s 13” black and white TV in our living room in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was probably 1967. He…
Waiting for Baby
byI got pregnant in October two months after a miscarriage. I didn’t feel happy at first. Gun shy, my father would have said, but he died, of lymphoma, just before…
Frenchie Says
byFrenchie says I look best in the khaki pants because they hide the heft of my ass. I keep asking him what he means, thinking he’s insulting me. It sounds…
Lethe, California
byThe Pacific. Rob and I have driven all the way from Oklahoma pretty much nonstop to reach this place, driven almost on a dare. And now, without even changing out…
What It Means to Be Haunted
byAt a party, as others sip beer around a campfire, you tell your friend he’s going to die on his motorcycle. And then he does. You can’t make the funeral…
Perfect White Ash
byOur table radiates slate blue in the back of this too-dark bar and restaurant. My drink is phosphorescent green, tastes fruity, and has gone straight to my head. My wife…