Coach Jed Foster led his Tornados out into the Swamp as it shook with roaring Gator fans. It was college football’s opening day and Western Kansas State’s first game ever as an NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) team. Coach Foster made his way to the sidelines where he immediately grabbed his Freshman running back, Jim [...]
He wasn’t surprised that it still stood. There was no reason the building shouldn’t have been condemned and destroyed—all the windows were busted, the brick walls were crumbling, the doors were dented or knocked off their hinges. The floors inside were probably full of holes. Any wood remaining had to be rotted through by now. [...]
Getting him the girls is the part I hate most. On these shameful walks along the Malecón, the first-timers try to hold my hand or put their arms around me—talking that Spanish baby-talk that makes me cringe. They don’t get it.
We pass by the local surfers: the nice Peruvian kids who made room for me [...]
The doors to the Garden Hills Funeral Chapel swung open allowing the blinding rays of sunlight to sting the eyes of Mrs. Hesner – the Chapel secretary – who was sitting peacefully at her desk with a stack of new invitation catalogues and writing down reference numbers.
She looked up at the sudden surprise of the [...]
There are two ways that I could tell this story.
I could start at the beginning and keep going until the story ends. That, of course, is how it happened. But it’s not how I experienced it nor how I remember it. In particular, it’s not how I remember Kathy and she, after all, is the [...]
“Hey man, you can’t live without internet, can’t you? As a fact, your whole life is inside that box, isn’t it? Ok, this was a joke. You have your life, and it’s outside of the computer, am I right? You are just temporarily hooked up, with no intention to spend your life in a front [...]
The rain rattled on to the single-glazed skylight that stretched part-way across the barge’s roof. Above the glass, greyness pervaded the grim lower atmosphere of North London, and if we moved down through it, we’d have been able to see two men engaged in deep conversation. One of them was irate, the other appeared incredibly [...]
Peter Morton woke with a start to face the first light. Rain tapped against the glass. It was January the fifth.
He looked across a table on which a night-light had guttered into a pool of water, at the other bed. Francis Morton was still asleep, and Peter lay down again with his eyes on his [...]
It was beyond her control. What did she think she could do, a thirty-seven year old woman with no training? As she zipped along the Bronx River Parkway the scattered litter and the graffiti splattering the retaining walls and once graceful stone bridges kept drawing her eyes away from the road.
Jan brushed her long brown [...]
The three of us, Dan, Tanya and me, sat in Dan’s cubicle, plotting how to take over the department. We were sick of the bullshit. We were sick of Morgan, the editorial director, all her stupid procedures, so we were going to take over the department by force. Dan wanted to use box cutters and [...]
