There’s nothing I’m more sick of than the reliable tick of my grandmother’s grandfather clock, standing watch as it does over a living...

Part 1: Down by the Lake "Hey Tin Man, you think I could walk across that lake?" "I don't think the ice is thick enough, Rose." "No....

I’ll never forget his face, wide open to the harsh light of the screen, drinkin’ it all in. At’s why it happened, Da said. He was all...

We are, by nature, oddballs. Call us weird, extraordinary, freaky. Monsters. I will not dispute or argue the label. From the perspective...

Claire was Chris’s new roommate. Chris was after me to try dating her. Chris and I had been friends for about 12 years by then. We were...

Trixie had been writing for 10 years before she finally got published. It was a long slog, with dozens and dozens of bad short stories, a...

My friend reminded me of a house fallen in disrepair. The slanting roof, the peeling paint, the gutters hanging loose. It can take ten...

First, don’t even be at the zoo during a forecasted storm even though your mum guilted you into taking your Tita, her not-so-favourite...

The dried crunch of seaweed brought a crowd of swarming flies, the buzzing intermingled with gull calls. The tang of salt and iodine...

Excerpt from letter dated January 13, 1957: … I’ve been haunted from the moment I arrived in this place.  It’s different here, away from...

In the center of Old Town, where the ruins of Quevdo are located, there’s a top that’s been spinning for as long as anyone can remember....

After disco. Before AIDS. There was Joe. Joe wasn’t a model though he could have been. Northern Italian, he looked more Austria than...

Mama’s strides back and forth make sun and shadow fall in rhythm: dark light dark light. A drumbeat or a heart. Benita glances up from...

Kelly called J.J. and Brooklyn her “kids” and fed them drugs. A mix of fox terrier and Jack Russell, J.J. Larue was an absolute cutie...

When Dad got sick in the nights his eyes would ignite and he’d yell, —Where is she? He’d prop himself up by the elbows, his head a...

There is a forest at the end of our garden. Years ago, when I was a scrawny youth, decorated in scrapes and bruises, I ventured through...

The house in Madison was loud and crowded with my aunt’s granddaughters, who were home indefinitely from school. Mom and I ended up...

When Anne and Gareth first got together, they’d squeezed into Gareth’s single student bed, clinging onto each other tightly, a mass of...

Hey-hey-hey! I like it when the sun rises early and the day is bright and warm, long into the afternoon. The earth is happy in the...

“Hi, table for one, please?” The hostess looked up from her phone, startled. She could be new, Mark had never seen her before. “Oh!” She...