“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” With a smile, Geoffrey turned toward the kennels. Mommy, Daddy, and Kid, the wide-eyed issue of their frenzied loins, obediently traipsed after him. Geoffrey had seen some permutation of this story a hundred times. In an unrelenting campaign, Kid pitches fits for puppy until Mommy, whose Xanax and coffee […]

Telling a story is not the same as showing it. Telling, or exposition, is a mere recitation of the facts. Exposition is telling. To illustrate the difference between telling and showing, think of a trade show. You’ve got all the booths lined up and everybody is hawking something. Why do you walk by some tables […]

Bruce Boxer: The War Tourist Bruce Boxer has the sort of neck and head that make fat men want to buy starched striped shirts and dotted silk ties, that is, elegant without being model-pretty, a man’s man, one who has the grace to make the sharing of your own Dance Floor War battle something in […]

Can people not see the futility of falling in love? Yet, against all advice, they do it over and over, time and again. Had Brockett Runyon not read the mirror-image memoirs by lovers Graychild and Williams? Had he not poured over the empirical data from the pivotal study by the team at MIT throwing Masters […]

Women are mysterious creatures. Even Catherine knew that. She was the biggest mystery of all. Even to herself. “Your energy. It has…changed.” Catherine tightened her fingers in Rogers’. His fingers remained mute; eyes looked to the same sky she searched above the cliff upon which they sat. “I don’t know what you mean. Silly girl.” He forced […]

Country woman in her late 70s.    My life sparked when my mama laid herself down with a bunch of horny toads in some city by a bay. She never rightly said but I think it was in Florida since according to my mama she ain’t never been west of the big river called the   […]

Announcer on the TV: Come to DealSteal.com and get the best deal for everything you want. Shipping is free. All you have to do is beat out the other bidders and it is yours! Joe hollered, “Oooo-wee. We gotta do that. Cynthia Baby! Where ya at?” Cynthia Baby was washing up the dishes from last night’s regular weekly […]

Sits young girl in pew of church. Thoughts of her body her mind does search. Feelings of love she has for young pastor. Thoughts of which make her heart race faster and faster. Visions of his touch singe her mind. Breathing becomes labored. “Pastor will be mine!” She dreams of his touch her womanhood making […]

Bill sat in the sound booth in the near-dark at the back of the crowded room, a fan keeping him cool. He never watched the stage, for to watch it meant he couldn’t manage the sound well. So he watched the room while his fingers diddled the dials. The club was busy for this Tuesday […]

Given the nature of our family, we were a secretive bunch. It was necessary. As in war when loose lips sink ships, in our family free and easy conversation would always lead to physical beatings, deprivations, and prolonged mental torture, so we didn’t engage in it. I say this to explain why it was that I […]

He was born to parents that would never, could never, understand him. For all intents and purposes, he was an alien. His parents were normal enough and that was the problem, for something about the boy invited abnormal adults to feel comfortable in his presence. To explain: Normal enough means regularly smart, while abnormal adult […]

The girl was born and raised in The South, yet knew nothing much of it as her attention was always focused on something else. The girl had heard of a great war that had once been fought over some issue…what was it? Oh, yes. Slavery. During a field trip in 5th Grade, she had even seen […]

Trashed out. In need of repair. Dingy paint, chipped. Floors, scratches showing clean wood through years of grime or squares of linoleum tiles searching for their place among empty patches of dried glue. Ceilings, smoke stained; bathtubs, ringed with mineral deposits clinging to God only knew whose old skin. Chicken coop out back, empty except […]

Long and tall she was born. Skin and bones, too, because her mother, determined to walk out of the hospital in her skinny pants, had eaten only goat’s milk and cornbread during her pregnancy thereby almost starving her firstborn. But the girl’s survival instinct was strong. So, using God’s very own system while plugged into […]