At the General Store, a cashier said, “No, we don’t sell food,” so we asked if she had candy or soda or anything general stores tend to sell, and she laughed. “I don’t think you know what General means,” and she showed us a green helmet and army boots and badges...
I would like someone to haunt my house and simulate some of my deceased husband’s habits, so I can get some sleep. These include: Walking into the bathroom. Leaving the door open with the bathroom light shining in my face. Urinating loudly. Opening the refrigerator...
Ann and Andy have a small, quiet apartment. They live tucked into a nook in a towering building, which is filled with other people who also live small, quiet lives. Ann and Andy are made of biodegradable material. We should note here that their names are not...
1. You are six, and your brother is four. The sun is so bright compared to the lush New Jersey canopy you are accustomed to. It makes the world appear technicolor and elongated. You go through “It’s a Small World,” and something about the unease of Florida burrows...
there is no romantic connecticut the text says, but I don’t take this as rejection. I don’t blame autocorrect. I read her words again, but can only see Connecticut, cut with all beauty this time of year —clean snow over old hedges and children sliding streets in stiff...
After you left, a goat took up residence in the left ventricle of my heart. I didn’t know about my little stowaway at first. I thought I simply wished to say “no” more often and while screaming. I thought the quality of my enunciation had merely slipped the same way...
Boy, on the night your mother brought you into this noisy, miserable world, at exactly 11:18 pm, on a rainy Thursday, your father reclined in his Toyota car outside the Emergency Unit and sucked on the titties of a nurse, the same nurse with the pointy bra and...
On the school bus you should have seen them, monkeying around about wheels, bottles of non-alcoholic beers, Rock-Paper-Scissor, two kids having a shootout with six-piece revolvers, percussive wet claps from fingers squished between armpits, cheers, and...
Alison was a cheerleader, and the second-prettiest girl in our class. These qualities seemed extremely important to us at the time, at least until she accidentally killed one of the football players with her car. It was a BMW, a red convertible. Her father, who did...
It was our first once-a-month grandmother-granddaughter date at the JCC. I hopped on the treadmill while you did Jazzercise, all ladies over the age of 60 – or maybe 70, but at the time, I couldn’t tell the difference – and one man, Norman. Ink blots on his bare head,...
You meet him at your niece's birthday party, where the kids run feral, coked-up on pink juice and icing. While he performs his act, your sister is with her mum friends, drinking warm wine in the kitchen and whispering loudly about that mother in the PTA. The men are...
Write down your goals for tomorrow. Write down your goals on a small pocket-sized notepad so that you can take it with you. Don’t make these goals for tomorrow a “to-do” list. Don’t do this because some of the things you’re bound to include in your goals (like...