Bob

Running as if life depended on it, Jill, a 5’ black girl with autism, I, a 6’ white guy. Both committed to our goal. Jill’s, grape jelly, mine, stop her. The worlds largest jelly store just ahead. Bursting through the door, jelly everywhere, Jill ever faster. Lunging at her, we fell against the wall of jelly. A lone jar balancing precariously begins to fall. What possessed me to bring Jill to Knott’s Berry Farm.

norman

parang enjoyed enchanted beastly blood cures path salves volcanic veins yet distant red lips pout smoke sky orange black gray natives'skulls gourds shake hear tremble air conga clouds beat oceans' wife her skirts ruffled bride throwing up her pearls fishing nets divorcing boats shoreline bones bamboo homes torches living smells human meat boys girls mothers finger father eyes how will grief save their world

john

Shrunken Heads dangled from branches around the camp, spinning in the breeze.Witch Kills, steeped with power. He learned about the technique in a journal stolen from the Prison Morgue. A full moon was rising.

Susanne

What about the wedding photos? I assembled them in a playbill starring US as a married couple in a long running play - comedy and tragedy portrayed every night for twenty-five years. It was a good run, but we won no awards nor enjoyed great reviews. We rarely had an audience. The curtain descended last night so we broke down the set, sold the props, and carried the costumes to our cars. Now the theatre is closed.

Demas

He didn't feel old, only tired at times. "What's the rush of this world passing by? I still have much to give; it's just that doors are closing now. I used to knock them down. Now I knock and no one opens. The family knows I try. Why did I wait so long to realize being elderly shows in the creases of my face, and my remaining youth bubbles only to my thin-skinned surface glow? I must smile more often now.”

Paulie

Two coffees with cream, coming right up. Hang on, the boss wants me. What's up, boss? I've got to let you go. Huh? You can't work here anymore, the customers are complaining. That can't be, it's my co-workers; they're all jealous. Not so. Customers have been e-mailing complaints. There's a process to complain and people are taking the time to do it, just to complain about you. Over ten complaints. Get your stuff and leave right now.

Michelle

She sits and listens. She does not speak. Her breathing increases, as does her heart rate. The fire starts somewhere in her chest. She can feel it rising higher and higher. Her throat tightens and she cannot swallow. The heat has reached her face now, moving slowly from her chin to her forehead. Her clenched jaw, her flaring nostrils, the spreading redness, all betray, her she thinks. No one seems to notice.

kevin

They loaded wood onto the brush fire. The boy and the Dad pushed briers with metal rakes to the top. They took turns feeding the fire with dead branches. It shot crackling sparks and smoke skyward."It's the same as the ocean:no yesterday or tomorrow,just now," Dad said. "Ya, said the boy." Both of them stood casting their eyes into the fire. "How long will it burn?" asked the boy.

Dave

The shattered glass on the road cast thousands of little streaks of light from the headlights of cars amassed on the road. The smell of burning rubber mixed with radiator fluid and burning grass, thick in the air. Steam rising from the crumbled metal, which looks like a ball of aluminum foil, men huddled in a circle. This is doesn’t look good a voice mumbles over the wail of the sirens. Dispatch we’re on scene.

norman

stories like balloons last for the instant they're popped so do you want to tell another lie to the detector but i tell you it happened just like i imagined it happened and just like i told you it would happen and just like it did happen and you know it happened just as much as you know yourself that you could have stopped it if you would have just believed me you did it with premeditation as much as I could give you

norman

one knocked on the door the another went through the window they found the body playing dead for the brother had been shot by the other who wasn't certain they possessed a live gun was the father missing the mother taken altogether by another one out the back door an old car coughed as it hobbled then sped with all of its horses with one voice choked up

norman

rats you say rats you have bitten me in places i dare not reveal said the baker's daughter now I must do with a trap what I could not do with my legs take off where i've been to forget where it goes yet he'd never hear her for he slept without ears her father so sweet to have trimmed them with shears where he laid began to stink like pie they'd leave for the cheese bandits to get inside

norman

various operations in birthing generosity without superficial presents how would we get over our minor scrapes no gift is so great it cannot be returned to the dead everyday is a holiday to vacation from being in pain so he wrapped on the street corner until a bus took him away far away so far away from the present

Michal

No-one to vote for, a lot of people to fuck. Aging awkward Ipads and naked footpads. Here the bubbles coruscating over the gleamed helipad. It's flooding in Lancaster. Inundating New York. Channeling des Champs-Élysées. Mithras we need a drink.
“Quit your whining, it’s only a barista temp job,” she sallies.
Sally, what do you know of Neorxnawang? All you know is Samarkand, Humvee wheels and patriots burning.

Kurt

In anticipation of his “surprise” birthday party [no surprise at all; he’d known about it for several days], Barney walked home even more slowly than usual. Looking down at his feet, shuffling along the sidewalk, now only a half a block away from “home” [actually his girlfriend’s apartment], a poem, [his first] began seeping into his brain: If you don’t require me to tell you I’m a liar, then I’ll never tell you anything that’s true. The truth is in believing that I’ve always been deceiving, though it should be nothing personal to you. The elevator door opens. Twenty guests in cheesy party hats simultaneously scream, “SURPRISE!!!” … but soon go completely silent as Barney continues looking down at his feet; then… ever so slowly looking up… “Hello”, he lies.

Dave

There’s a beat before the report that lasts about a year, where Bob lifts up the bottle to see if his drink exploded in the Anbar heat. Then he notices the hole in his IBA. Finally, that chagrined smile we’ve seen a thousand times with its now familiar snapshot story: “I’m a dumb-ass but I am fine.” He’s smiling, relaxed, now falling, already gone, when the sound of the shot splits the air. “Sniper!” someone yells.

Philip

At 250 KPH, my BMW pierces the grey cold afternoon of the autobahn’s fast lane. The near guardrail blurs blue. From a row of creeping silver tankers, a white van lazily pokes its shoulder into my space. Oh shit, what’s he doing? I brake hard, nose dives deep. Is it enough? I jink left, but Smack! The seatbelt jerks tight, the windshield crazes opaque, and my head flops into the beige airbag. Red, then all is black.

norman

liver pool cabinet of gems deity of compassion lay worshipers monks temple industry ritualized late arrivals in crystal palace war store confessions sotheby's curated encounter conversations' antiquity curiosities exhibiting refusal's imperial significance birth's constructs iconic serendipity researched ming beings dynasty acknowledged illustration outside world sacred profane museum ethnology race publicly private

Adam

A snake caught by a rock hails a passing farmer.
—But you’ll bite!
—Please! This hurts!
But when close, the snake turns.
—Now no-one will help you!
—I can help myself. Another farmer will come:
He sees more farmers behind the rock and, to hide his shame, staggers to them, warmed by them. The snake to his dead:
—I don’t need you. I can get out. Look!
He strains, then stops, enjoying the evening sun, awaiting his farmer.

Patricia

I stared at her shiny head glistening under the lights. “Why doesn’t she at least wear a scarf?” I later asked a friend. “What must visitors to our church think of our bald minister?” He replied, “She’s earned the right to show off her bald head. She’s bearing witness to what a cancer patient goes through. She is gracing us with her truth.” And grace is exactly what I did not deserve yet did receive that Sunday.