### “Yes, life is life,” Charles said. “Except when it …” ### “Isn’t” ### Charles pauses here, to which Cassandra says: “Okay, so what...

The bumble bee did not know that winter had begun until he woke in the mouth of a tulip, her petals glossed over with ice. He bumbled...

It had been nearly a century since my last visit to the chateau. My light carriage, drawn by two dappled steeds, ascended the steep,...

These days she would accept all or any correspondence. His utterances are a dying dialect. The last thing he had told her was ‘I do not...

Friday afternoon became interesting following a hard knock at the backdoor. I rose up from the kitchen table, abandoning my hot coffee...

I Southern California smells of honeysuckle, pomelo, orange blossoms, lavender and the Pacific Ocean, always the ocean. All scents are...

My girlfriend, Jolene, took it and ran with it, but I figured I should let her know. Too bad an argument ensued and it ended abruptly....

We thought you’d remember us. Trisha dreamt her kid tumbled down the stairs and opened the flesh below his knees. She’d woken up,...

A crimson mist, shading to pinkish-brown, burnished the tips of the red maple trees, but otherwise it was still late winter drab as...

Matt hoped to God he wasn't wearing the Cookie Monster T-shirt. While he might be able to afford one or two minor embarrassments today,...

I saw him again, looking as creepy as ever. Dark brown silhouette and protruding antennae that towered his large eyes. He crawled with...

Germit Honely lopes out of jail into the sun, ready to leave the place in his rear-view for good this time. He side-eyes the squat brick...

Jeffrey was walking along Larkin Street through San Francisco's Tenderloin district towards the Civic Center Plaza. He was stopped at a...

Vanessa logged out and picked up her keys. Garrett, a “team leader” was leaning into the next cubicle and his lower body was blocking her...

I dress in the dark every morning for school. I don't want to wake up Lanny, who makes his own schedule for his marketing business that...

A small crowd of England soccer fans nursed plastic cups of local German beer while singing God Save the Queen. A couple of hours before...

He stood outside the Guggenheim, panicking. The light was about to change and his thoughts raced down 5th Avenue like a yellow taxi. God,...

I sit at my desk, a nice one – yellow wood, not in the best condition but well-made – and think, “I’m a fraud.” This has nothing to do...

Where could she be? It was snowing. Hard. And his sister was somewhere in the storm. Papa went to fetch the doctor—Mama’s baby was...

“Believe it or not,” I say, hoisting the ice chest over my head, “I cannot control the river.” “Yeah, whatever,” Samantha says. “Just get...