forty-one

“It started in my toaster, burned the whole place down.”-A likely excuse from ever-absent receptionist Gina.
Jack, semi-sober, at the semi-awkward office party Friday, held out car keys and said, “My roommate used to fuck ‘er; I know where she lives.”
A car was packed with as many people as possible, who, minutes later, saw that not [...]

forty-one

Morgan arrives home late after another mildly exciting night with co-workers at some downtown bars. Before his key hits the lock, he stops to the sound of a frail voice. Across the street, an old lady with wild hair and a red dress stands in the door frame of an unremarkable house, slightly silhouetted by [...]

forty

Susie had been a surprise, sitting absolutely vertical on her bar stool, sipping a cherry coke. He asked her name. Susie. Sober Susie. He was unable to tear himself away; after three whiskey sours her presence was so utterly unexpected.
On Friday she said, “I have to go to work,” [...]

forty

Cold Berliners breaking down a wall with kitchen utensils and overgrown fingernails while a Russian man with an ink blotch forehead watched on from a large carpeted room in Moscow led to a New Mexico Uranium mine to close its doors in late 1991. No more yellow cake meant no more job. He worked HR [...]

thirty-nine

After his fatal heart attack she finds herself looking through her father’s things.  The pornography is not as surprising to her as the electric razor.  In her childhood he had scoffed at such things.  She used to sit on the bathroom counter and watch him take to his face with heated shaving cream.
She presses the [...]

thirty-nine

Some chicas were eating outside of Don Pedro’s with crispy Aqua Net hair and hoop earrings talking fast Spanglish. No doubt it was about quiet boys with slicked back hair who looked unaffected and hung out in groups of ten-plus with girls in their arms, saying nothing, just watching the lady-less ones talk too much. [...]

thirty-eight

While staring at the yellow scarf draped over his bedroom light he finally realizes the extent of his boredom. It’s their first night apart in over a week, and he’s been fingering the telephone keys for the past hour.
Finally calling, he asks, “What are you doing?”
“Emily’s talking about cute boys,” she drawls lazily. [...]

thirty-eight

“Yeah… traffic is so bad people actually read in their cars while stuck in rush hour.”
Never having been to Los Angeles, Kamile closes her eyes and imagines a middle-aged white man in a freshly washed, black Mercedes with the windows up and the AC on so the hot wind doesn’t mess up his hair. He’s [...]

thirty-seven

They bought two guinea pigs, but- one of them being misgendered- ended up with eleven. The girls are delighted, making baskets out of their skirts to carry the babies, revealing polka-dotted panties. At night the girls’ mother can hear the guinea pigs squealing, like the singing of birds. She can’t help but [...]

thirty-seven

It’s an official day off. People take to sidewalks edges in Sunday’s worst with lawnmowers and hedge-trimmers and hoses. Children and animals come with plastic entertainment too. A few bring stereos as they toil while some let bicycle chain rings and passing airplanes fill their ears.
The people, the sun, the smell of gasoline and grass [...]

thirty-six

Every morning her horoscope, those two sentences positioned above the comics in the newspaper, fills her head in the same way that tea splashes into cold china. Folding the newspaper, she glances at a couple of stray Cheerios floating in the tiny puddle of milk that fills her bowl. One bumps into the [...]

thirty-six

Walking out of the electronic sliding doors of the grocery store with a bottle of vodka and no-pulp orange juice, a man walks up.
Quelle heure est-il?
She blinks and shakes her head. His face is now purple.
“Time…what time is it?”
She steps back and rubs her fingers to her eyes. And asks with a stuttered accent,
“Is there [...]

thirty-five

She arrives home from the bars to find he has drawn a lumpy cartoon character on her door in blue chalk.  A word bubble comes out of its mouth, stating simply, “I miss you.”
She doesn’t realize she forgot to lock the keypad on her phone when she put it in her purse that evening.  It [...]

thirty-five

Short and young Latin men who, despite being second generation, maintained an accent that sounded like sentences were being interrupted by splinter-less tongue depressors were often undeniably attractive to him. However, prospects of exploring these sentiments never stuck long enough to be seriously considered. Instead, he recognized his magnetism towards these men as being largely [...]