They kept the fucking a secret, as their workplace rules compelled: more difficult than it seemed since between them vibrated a palpable...

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...

We push open the doors that say Masks required, No mask? No service, Mask up—it’s the law. Who looks at signs on doors. Who listens. We...

Her name was Albert II. But that wasn’t her real name; that’s what the NASA engineers called her, those doughy-faced men with pocket...

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...

“I—am—so—sorry,” she says to me. Each word is a pause, a breath, a gift. Gifts that I no longer expected, but still wanted. I want us to...

The heavy door opens, and I check in. Someone pats me down. When they finish, I put my keys, my wallet, and my Chapstick back in my...

I am not ready, but you drag me into the light anyway. You are gentle, and for this I am grateful. You treat me with respect. You fold my...

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...

Tantan chacha swore on Brahma that the doctor had installed Chinese nuts for his old ones. The amicable neighborhood blacksmith could be...

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...

It’s April and it’s not yet sunrise and there’s a sudden screaming on the pond that makes me fall right off the bed (I don’t know why,...

They had spent a week digging the shaft, building a derrick of four beams, each crossing seventy-feet high, snarled with ties and braces...

Refectory, Priory of St. Pancras Lewes We cross the parquet floor to the two long rows of tables The hems of our robes hush the floor We...

Roaring applause. Roaring applause. Roaring applause. Roaring applause. Roaring applause. Roaring As applause. Roaring As we applause....

People die every day. That’s what I kept telling myself anyway—anything to explain why we put Lisa in the ground this morning, why a...

I Today I intend to document how the middle-aged, physically fit and balding Tully Lieberman lived in a house on the very edge of the...

When she emerged from the elevator, he was surprised to see that she was alone. Usually, she was with her husband, on the way to a book...

I’ve got the number on Lou. I can tell you his routine, his habits, how and when he laughs and who he spends his time with (no one) and...