I fantasized about watching the event roll out like an Oscars pre-show: people dolled up in their Sunday best saying things like Marcus would have loved this, or that’s too cheerful, or do we have to go? The Dodgers game is on, but I’ve fast-forwarde

When she calls in the morningI’ve changed my number address identifying featuresI’ve sacrificed my name when she calls in the morningWith news she’s selling my teeth on eBayThe teeth she broke offOne by oneWhile I was sleeping that is a lie when sheC

Late July The music was still playing when Dalton Changoor vanished into thin air. Marlee, Dalton’s young wife, had only realised he was gone when the winds swept up the yellow tarp that usually covered his red Chevrolet pickup. The tarp now thrashed

Hello, I am calling from the End of the World Matchmaking Services to congratulate you. You have been matched with a man only a four days bike ride away. Unfortunately, this man is one of the ones you explicitly stated on your form as not wanting to

So, you take this arrow, anchor it to your bow and you just…shoot! The curly haired man said, releasing it through the air, aimed squarely at a woman on the tour boat. They watched as a smile broke on her face and her head turned, drawn to the man wi

He had a rubber mouse that he would talk towhen nobody else was aroundand he was able to be most like himself.Whenever he wasn’t digging holes, or playingwith his cars in the dirt, he would be deepin conversation with his mouse, his friend.Nothing th

Dale types text to overlay the photo: You are about to receive ten thousand dollars! Type yes if you believe! He clicks save, names it, using a naming format he’s adopted to keep track of his thousands of affirmations, then pulls up the next photo, a

Fine white veinsincised through thick blue glazetrace coiling dragons. A careless duster-strokeand the lid falls.Her eye catches it, her hand, just too slow, sees it smash on the hearth,explode six ways –at least, there should be six. She hurts with

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His heart sang when he heard his first skylark of the year. It was his favourite sound. Many years from now he suspected a billion nano-bots would be helping to keep his bioengineered body alive onboard a hulking space freighter, but for most of the

The night I slip inside my lover’s heart, I can’t escape the taste of blood, nor the smell, nor the pulsing of a beat around us like those clubs he enjoys—umm-pah, umm-pah. Past the atrium, it’s an entire chamber of red walls and vaulted ceilings tha

My mother was a cardiologist and a drunk. Not the nasty kind of drunk, but the sad and pathetic kind. Before she died of acute liver failure she taught me two things. The first thing she taught me was that if you want to quit smoking, you have to swe

I was born with a broken heart. Quite literally. It was full of holes and the blood would sip from one place to the other without rhyme or reason. I wouldn’t stay alive for long with this Swiss cheese of a heart. So I went to the hospital with my you

I am the animal who lives in your chestthe thumping back legs of the snowshoe harebounding over snow-flurried fields chasingtailwinds, blustering gusts, uplifting air.Blood pulsing nimble, I navigate trailslooping for bark, shrubs and grasses, ear-ti

Welcome to the suck, the heat pump,red pressure pressing from the right-handpassing lane tunnel exit of lungsto the on-ramp left ventricle, quickpitstop through the aorta, Cupid’s answerto the tricuspid valve in a surge like an arrowshot over the Wes

I sneak another look at her, quick and nonchalant, in case she wakes. What could be worse after a first night with someone than to wake up and find their overkeen face staring down at you? But I would drink her in if I were a braver man. I would savo

It was late into Sally’s shift when the deer arrived. Not a deer in its entirety. Parts of a deer, inexplicably holding together in a form that was more-or-less recognisable. The antlers were intact, and perfectly magnificent, but the face and body w

It’s the last night of the festival and I have a bucket of wings. Pizza, red wine, sandwiches hold sway on other blankets spread like stamps on the hillside. We gulp and chew away the evening. A crust of darkness covers us, but our heads poke out as

I didn’t know what to think when Mum called and said Sunny had crawled into my bed. I was helping an old wholesaler from Ten Acres Farm when Abilene shouted, “Charlie, telephone!” I rolled the handcart to the man’s wagon, loaded three crates of corn

From the outside, it looks one of those red peppers Grandma cooks with. Aren’t they pretty much empty inside? It might not be too bad. But when Mrs. Foster guides me in with a tender shove, it feels more like I’ve been stuffed into my mother’s purse.