Searing hot, the surface of the grill as it pushed up against his right palm. George felt the thin plastic kitchen glove fuse with his bare skin, and his hand applied the kind of pressure that only someone unaware of the pain would willingly apply to the clean, shining metal surface of the flat top grill in the morning. —Read on »
“Are you gonna tell me what happened to your face?” Andrea asked her cousin.
Brendan slammed on the car’s brake. Traffic had come to a standstill on the 405. He looked at Andrea out of the corners of his eyes. “I need a smoke,” he said. “You want one?” —Read on »
It has been there forever – or at least as long as any of the locals can remember. It stands just south of town overlooking dozens of acres of untamed fields, keeping steady watch year in and year out as the seasons work their magic on the land. The old Tilley barn. Weather beaten, abandoned, and yet still somehow stately-looking. To the naked eye it seems that no house ever stood next to it, but if one is curious enough to stomp through the overgrowth, they will discover the crumbling remnants of a stone foundation, once a modest farmhouse. —Read on »
John did not believe in Karma, or Fate, or The American Dream.
How could it be otherwise? His mother died of cancer when he was young and his father died afterwards, more slowly, clinging onto the remnants of life for the boy’s sake. But when he finally let go, early in John’s nineteenth year, the large remainder of his mother’s medical bills—and the mortgage—fell on John’s shoulders. Plus interest. —Read on »
I opened my eyes and stared at my cell phone. Even before the phone rang I knew he was dead. That’s why when it did I said, simply, “What’s happened?”
“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” she responded.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” —Read on »
The gardener dangled his feet over the edge of the stone wall while Isabella pondered her next move. An old wooden chessboard sat on the tower wall between them. Isabella had her legs crossed and held her chin cupped in her right hand. She took her time, like she always did, placing the greatest concern on each move, and when she scrunched her eyebrows down to focus, like she was doing now, she was impervious to any distraction.
Knowing this, the old gardener was content to watch the orange sun set behind the hills as it deepened in color. The quality of his focus was different than the girl’s. His was more relaxed, appearing to a stranger almost languid. But he saw farther into the game than Isabella did. After all, she had only been playing chess for the last century or so. He had been playing since he Arrived. —Read on »
Must I witness this farce? asks the pooch. You cannot eat soup with a fork. —Read on »
His imagination flapped its wings and took off from the platform of his mind, soaring into the cold blue sky that was marred only by a few large white marshmallow clouds. The bird – he imagined it always as a predator, a falcon or an osprey, with vicious beak and discerning sharp eyes – eventually came back down to roost. Looking around him again, seeing the parking lot in place of the soft curve of the horizon, the inside of his car instead of the wide expanse of blue sky, he sighed, pulled his bag onto his lap, and stepped out of the car. —Read on »
“If I were dead,” Jeremy says to Gordon through the corner of his mouth, gazing at long line in front of him, “this would be hell.” —Read on »
Mrs. Ricci traveled all over the world in the last twenty years of her life. She traveled for long periods at a time with only her suitcase, a durable rollaway that millions would see gliding along behind her in airports from Bankgok to Los Angeles to London. —Read on »
