FICTION

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Albert Camus
What Did I Mention To Ya?

Ever since your son brought you here, things have been different. He was crying when he dropped you off. You still don’t know why.

The Whole Vile Lot

I eat my Oreos with relish. No—I mean I relish in the Oreos I eat.

Sisters of the Divine Apparatus

The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.

In Rare Cases…

You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.

sun in clouds
The Rapture

I don’t know why I was still talking about the rapture. I certainly didn’t believe in it. Regardless, it remained a thief…

A Eulogy For the Boy I Don’t Love

The most entertaining thing about Miguel is that when he was 13 he dislocated his shoulder playing basketball and can now pop it in and out of place. There is nothing particularly interesting about Miguel.

salt lake
Climb The Highest Mountain

When I was on earth I was a pretty good kid. I only got drunk when I needed to get drunk.

Out of the Harbor and Into the Open Sea

I’d never heard of anyone having a second baby right after the first one, but everything was so strange in those early days of motherhood that I just acted on instinct.

cupcakes
Pleasure That Cannot Be Felt as Such

I loved Rena as much as a patient could love their gynecologist. We had tea together in her office. I cried when she asked how I was doing, and she showed me pictures of her terriers.

Cost of Care

I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.

Little Cow

A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”

forest fire
When The Ten Thousand Ton Trilobite Attacked

We said, Heck, that’s really something.

Junk

It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.

Swoon

Jenna says that he typically goes for redheads, so I run to Target and buy a box of hair dye.

The Nightmare of the Waking World

“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”

Behind This Fence in Future Tense

My new neighbor is making a violin from a cigar box. He got the cigar box from a guard. The guard, presumably, got it from outside the Fence.

Nautilus

She turns her back for me to fasten the rows of metal hooks. Why isn’t our small, tender freedom enough?

Oppressive and Certain Decay

I pushed my nose to within an inch from the rug. I sniffed, and sniffed, and I smelled something…not quite right, but I couldn’t place it.

rotarty phone
My Wife’s Phone

Sex is not a thank you card in this house.

The Drift

And then he feels that familiar sensation of drifting—when his body untethers from the material world and he soon dissolves into a fine, floating mist that evaporates into the atmosphere.

Darkness always follows.

Share some abandon.

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