1. Jean lingered in Tyler’s, a music shop with a bar in the front. Used guitars and banjoes, all for sale, hung along the wall by their necks, their wood darkened in patches where fingers had strummed, tuning knobs like … Continued

THREE WEEKS AGO, the day Willy escaped, we were sitting together on the living room floor, watching Malcolm in the Middle, popping extra buttery popcorn in the microwave. We dumped all the popcorn into a plastic bowl and mixed in … Continued

1. The mouse before me is dead, its body emptied of organs. Dead but still innervated, so still blinking in this world. I only harvest from their core—heart, lungs, liver, and the rest—but soon I will have to work with their … Continued

To the Editors of the Novoe Russkoe Slovo: The biographies tell us he had many friends and social obligations. The biographers, his friends, tell us his other friends—also biographers and rememberists—were not as close to him as they’ve claimed, in … Continued

Okay, I believe you now, Oz was a dream. I never flew over the rainbow, whisked aloft in a big house in a cyclone’s vortex. And the house and I never fell back to earth and landed on the Wicked … Continued

Kelly, whose mother had rolled up the Subaru windows and driven into a lake, took photos of crushed up anti-depressants. Each pill, Kelly said, represented an unanswered question about her mother’s suicide. Sophia, whose parents were corporate lawyers, took photos … Continued

Accept that your husband’s heart always belonged to his first love. You should’ve noticed sooner because she works in your building and won’t look you in the eye. She takes the stairs because you ride the elevator. Give him back … Continued

sugar I wasn’t sure what to make of it when my daughter sat at the breakfast table with a cigarette butt in one hand and a Skittle in the other. Karen had attempted to hide them from me, clenching her … Continued

My cat is taking drugs again. I’m pretty sure he’s getting them from this neighborhood boy named Alex, a mouth-breathing white kid with cornrows. Chopsticks, my cat, is a 6 year-old tabby I adopted from a kitten rescue program after my girlfriend … Continued

Edison High and Kwonsun Hakkyo In a way, my parents met in high school. They were pen pals for three years. As a graduation gift, my American grandparents agreed to send my father to Korea; eleven months after that trip, … Continued

Willowbrook Road is a fierce run of valleys and curves. The fog settles down just after dark, the temperature drops, and the cool dampness slides into the grass. The deer, the sloths, and the groundhogs come out – glinting at … Continued

We’re getting a little bored, so I ask my girlfriend if she wants to play the game tonight.  She says she does.  I was hoping she’d say that. Every time we play the game, it brings us a little closer … Continued

Madeline wore stockings, which Julia thought would’ve looked sexier if her shoes had a higher heel, or any heel at all, really. She must have walked into all rooms, including this one—Julia’s studio apartment—like a patient, silently clutching a purse … Continued

From work I usually go straight home to feed the cubs, who’ve come to depend on me for dinner, which isn’t necessarily healthy but has its gratifying aspects–for all of us, I think. But this had been one of those … Continued

The world was going to end at 11:36 that night. It would be very anticlimactic; the universe, due to some comical flaw in its construction, was simply going to collapse on itself at the speed of light. An international team … Continued

In the airport babies were crying. Babies all through the building were howling themselves into stupors. One baby must have started it and the others were moved to join in. I pulled my suitcase past the gates, where people sat … Continued