Fiction

  • The Beautiful Days

    In the days of his youth, Aldo often found himself-as many of us did-in a state of grace, and the sensation in his boundless filling heart resembled, to his mind, the transports of love. His Midwestern college, set down in the middle of a cornfield and isolated from any big city by fifty miles of…

  • The Hull Case

    Of modern North American cases one of the earliest and most widely reported abductions occurred in the early sixties to a mixed race couple in New Hampshire . . . -K. Clifford Stanton, Taken: 12 Contemporary UFO Abduction Narratives Bessie is telling the colonel about the ship now, and Bernie, sitting stiffly on the sectional…

  • Vikings

    We were almost out of money, so Trace went to steal us another bottle of something. We were celebrating. The holiday weekend was almost over, and the mechanic was due back in town the next morning. We’d finally be able to get back on the road. I sat on the rear bumper of the van…

  • Back East

    Uncle Lake and Aunt Bobette lived just off the La Loma bridge that crossed the Arroyo Seco. Right after the bridge, you made your first left-their house was classic Pasadena, a craftsman house with a low-pitched roof, exposed rafters, dark wood shingles, and a sleeping porch vined with wisteria and grape, drab green and idle…

  • Spillage

    Kai opened her eyes and looked around her. She was disoriented until she saw the Canadian customs booth in front, with the maple leaf decal on one of the glass panes. She realized she had fallen asleep, missing both the customs booth on the U.S. side and the Ambassador Bridge. Now she and Bailey were…

  • Hunters and Gatherers

    Rick had been searching for the Pillings’ address for over twenty minutes, and the hungrier he became, the harder it was to concentrate on the dimly lit street signs, the six-digit numbers stenciled on curbs. Westgate Village was a planned community an hour away from the downtown loft where Rick lived, and its street names…

  • Lessons in Another Language

    In the summer of 1967, Nathan Bogmore never woke up before eleven o’clock. He was fourteen years old, and he slept with more intensity than he did anything else. Having just left the warm, rumpled mattress in the empty back room of their cottage, he stood at the front door in his pajamas, squinting into…

  • Three Seaside Tales

    The Man with the Spotted Dog I was sitting at an outdoor café across from the ocean in Florida when I spotted the man with the spotted dog. I thought it was interesting. Me at a seaside resort and a man with a spotted dog. It reminded me of the famous story where a man…

  • How Aliens Think

    Green is the color that defines them, of course. They don’t realize yet, but it’s already there in the picture. Look closely, and Susan’s wearing a grass-green peridot and pearl ring on her engagement finger, for Jim, who’s coming to meet her as the S.S. Carinthia steams into New York Harbor. And Keith has on…