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She looked in the mirror and found to her horror that she was in the wrong house. Not a bad house, mind you. She found it quite stylish. The décor was very much to her taste, though the colour scheme was certainly not one she would have chosen herself. (She would have been afraid to […]

She asked me if I remembered. I told her:
“Remember? How could I forget? I recall it specifically because the … the … the thing!”
No. I had no idea what the thing was. I didn’t remember. My memory isn’t like that. My brain has it’s own way. It recalls that Captain Picard, at the end of […]

There was something a little bit quiet about Mary-Ellen and something a tad unusual about her face – a look not commonly there. For a woman normally vibrant and carefree and brightly loquacious, she was strangely somber, perhaps even anxious. She simply sat at the table and stared at her coffee.
“Hey, dear? What’s up?”
She turned […]

It was raining for the 28th straight day and everything, even birthday parties, felt funereal. As this was a funeral, of sorts, there was a sense of excess to the occasion.
The mourners arrived just in time dressed as clowns. Trent scratched his head, sighed and said, “That’s all they could get? Clowns?”
Flo shrugged. “You’ve got […]

If Annette’s mother was on the floor, her jaw askew from a punch firmly delivered and her head bloody from the blow it took in the fall that followed, and she was seriously dead, no blame can be laid except to the wind, the damnable, disreputable wind.
My worry was that police and lawyers and courts […]

It was just a bad feeling. I couldn’t coordinate my limbs. Stepping forward, I would weave right. Reaching out to the fence for balance, I clutched air and staggered in quick-step fashion till I came to an abrupt stop, arms outstretched, weaving like an unstable antenna.
I tried to speak but my words slid, one into […]

I once knew a man with a hole in his head. He put it there himself. He used a hand drill.
He got the idea from a news story - the newspaper, a television newscast, whatever. It was immediately picked up by every news outlet in the world. It was offbeat. Good filler. Some news hound […]

The children are gone. Roger’s pants are gone. So is his wallet and with it our money.
I can’t help but think there is a connection.
Roger, in his early fifties and with a “paunch,” meaning he’s considerably overweight and very out of shape, stands raging. He wears nothing but an ill-considered thong. I am reminded of […]

Neil Young was singing about prairie winds and Canada geese and I was getting into a relaxed, perhaps melancholy mood, when Russ said, “I had no idea that’s where that goes.”
“It doesn’t go there,” I said
“Oh.”
“Put it there. With that.”
We were cleaning up my mess. Trying to make sense of things. Or at least put […]

“It’s raining.”
“Yes.”
“Will it stop?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“Dunno.”
“Shit. So why do you like this town so much? All it ever freakin’ does is rain.”
“There are places in Africa where this would be proof of God’s beneficence.”
“God’s what?”
“Beneficence.”
“What’s that?”
“Kindness. Goodness. A helpful gesture.”
“Well, this isn’t helping me. If it’s from God, I think he’s saying this place sucks.”
“No. Beneficence. God […]