Fiction

In the days before she died, Doug’s wife had given him detailed instructions about how he should comport himself in his future romantic endeavors. (“Ellie,” he said, “I do not want to talk about this.”) First, he was not to introduce their adult children to any women for at least a year. (“Ellie, please—”) Second,…

I used to want to help him. Nurture him, provide the attention he craves. But trust me on this: do not engage with Johnny. If you meet him by the bathroom and he tells you his theory about the id and the color red, do not stop to converse. If he peeks his nose into…

Joseph cursed his face in the cab’s rearview mirror. A mix of old and new betrayed the convergence of time. Grayed goatee and riverbeds of crow’s feet; salt and peppered hair. When he smiled big, dimples sank into his laugh lines. A hint of boyhood lit Joseph’s eyes. He had little else to show for…

“Jimmyjimmyjimmyjimmyjimmy,” he said to his new friend as he lay on the bed in detox. It was early afternoon, and he was still dressed. There was mud on the front of his shirt and on his jeans, and his boots were muddy too. He’d had his wife stop along the country road on the way…

The gun goes off. The gun just goes off, is the way it seems. I’m aiming at the sky and the barrel flashes. The clip holds nine rounds. Nine flashes. And the sound! Oh, the sound of a .45 pistol firing off into the solitary deep of a 3:00 a.m. night out in the country….

I gave the girl my wife’s nightgowns. Her sexiest lingerie. Back when my wife still used to wear those things for me. Back before I started drinking sixty beers a day. 24/7 drinking. I don’t know if the girl wears them. Maybe she wears them for someone else now. That would be some weird shit,…

Around ten years ago, in December, as the Mayan Long Count calendar appeared to begin another five-thousand-year cycle, Ian sat at a café drinking a succession of espressos. He had been anxiously waiting for something. For the end of days, for the aliens to come. The day rolled by uneventfully enough, and he decided to…

Families have certain things they believe in and things they don’t believe in. Certain rules they live by. My family didn’t believe in nail clippers. In fact, I didn’t know about nail clippers until I was in my late twenties, some years ago. My husband came into the bathroom while I was cutting my toenails…

After you betray him, you will try to explain yourself. You will sit at his computer, the one he fell into and never returned, and you will stare at the screen inches from your face, but your fingertips will hover above the very keyboard he could never leave and you will feel like the woman…