I fetch her the toy bricks Father made from a fallen hornbeam, but she rolls her eyes, hands me a slice of castellated krustenbrot, sends me to town for a bushel of ginger. She bakes model cottages with strudel-work windows, byres with almond-paste oxen, kennels with marzipan puppies. When her schloss cake collapses from its surfeit of turrets, she simply laughs and starts again. Soon she’s building sturdy barns with dumpling mortar, merchants’ houses with pumpernickel shing

Reprint. Originally published in Choatic Merge's last issue The guy in the pizza shop is a conspiracy theorist who thinks giving women too many rights makes them violent offenders who’ll knock a man to the floor over a thin-crust pepperoni. Most days, you linger outside and wait for him to get sidetracked by a call, so his kid takes over the counter – he’s a quiet lad, who just sort of mumbles and passes your order along to his dad after he’s hung up. No fuss, then. You can p

Tuesday night turned into Wednesday morning, and we were nowhere near home. Me and the boys were always on that pendulum, swinging from...

After their early dinner their last night in Provincetown, they walked to the beach. Light reflected off the water, sprinkled the waves,...

This trip Myrna Sweeney was in first-class. Free drinks though it was still too early for a beer. More legroom so her knees wouldn’t be...

Kevin thought he could take Wayne. At worst, it would be close. Wayne was pulling a hose across a dusty field. “What are you growing?”...

I still can’t really say how or when Miriam made the move from being our English au pair to being my twin brother's girlfriend. It was...

Getting old is a kick in the lady garden, Charles. I’ve only said that once to anyone out loud—to my friend, Jeannie (the one who told...

Henry Fuckbutter was a real man, as real as any before or since. And I’m not just making this up, mind you—you can Google it yourself. I...

The painter’s wife was instantly recognisable: she was hurrying barefoot along the cracked stone path that linked the lodge’s drained...

“When did this happen?” Paula says as she scrolls through her son’s photographs on the laptop. “What?” he asks. Jarred by his question,...

We are here to hunt the beasts the natives call Coqeli. We have traveled six thousand miles by plane, car, boat and helicopter. For two...

Elias Wolf is a perfect name for a vampire, and the Elias Wolf who lived in my hometown of Putnum, West Virginia, certainly looked the...

A few weeks after Haley Lovell’s third birthday, her dad buckled her into her car seat outside the old Milford post office, kissed her...

The upright speakers at the front of the reception hall invite the couples up to slow dance. I sit beside AJ at our table, next to his...

At 7 am on a Friday, Ellie stood outside her apartment dressed like Joan of Arc. From her window upstairs the street had looked sunny and...

Way back in Tommy Tutone's childhood Chicago, the word on the street is that Tommy was conceived under a dead hickory tree, on top of a...

The Walther P22 in Carl Peltier’s glove compartment isn’t the same gun his father used. That was the P38, heavier by a pound and forever...

When I originally wrote this story and sent it to a magazine I thought might be interested, I got it back with the note they rejected it...

Eddie says things must change between us, that they can’t be as before. “Because I’m not here anymore, not really.” He has tried to...