Fiction

Willie Mae worked at the slaughter house slitting hogs' throats. From eight to six she stood with her knife and blood-spattered apron performing her task. Willie Mae was efficient. One sharp slash at the vital vein, one last shrill squeal from the hog and it was over. Bud picked her up at six in the…

"Laney, ready?" I grabbed my bag and ran after her. Slammed the front door behind me. It was a real crisp evening outside. The wind was sharp. Should have brought a sweater but too late now, she wouldn't wait for me to get one. I got into the car and slammed the door. Before we…

The first time Jack had to hunt a whale he went about it all wrong. He'd never thought about it much, so his confusion came as no surprise when he woke up one morning with harpoons in his lashes. After he'd picked them all out he decided to walk down to the wharves and talk…

I exhausted the local dentists. They had nothing to say. Even the specialists in the city were silent. All I wanted was an explanation. – Why are my teeth falling out? – You've been working too hard. – I'm a healthy man! – Don't argue. Cut out the night life. That's when it started, hm?…

This is a bathroom/animal/castration story. Dianne and Drummond Hadley have a wildcat that was given to them by the guy that runs the Desert Museum in Tucson. It stands maybe two feet high and is really substantial if you're used to looking at housecats. It plays. If you pull a wad of paper on a…

Before it gets lost into the void I want to tell about a letter that got written to the Denver Post years ago. It could have been as long ago as 1947 or 1948. It was apparently written in answer to a letter that had been written earlier and, judging by this letter the earlier…

He was a piece of trash from the first, not to be taken seriously. He arrived in the colony together with his wife, a heavy woman, and two daughters who were, one later learned, twins but not the identical kind. They seemed good enough girls, quiet and formless, pre-adolescent. But the parents were, each in…

Holding my New York Times unfolded in front of me, now and then glancing up with considerable casual effect, as if deeply engrossed in thought, I carefully looked him over. I didn't want him to know that he'd been recognized. Naturally. He was well-groomed, which at first surprised me, but then I quickly understood. His…

You may wonder why there are so few of us. It could probably be explained from the point of view of evolution regarding us as either freak mutations or freak adaptations. Besides it always seems to be a terrible life squalid or obsessive or sterile. Full of evasions of some reallife marriages. Marriages seldom occur…