She spies a young blond man with small ferret-like hands raking as she approaches the last trailer in the lot. The great fire is closing in, its smoke rising high just beyond the hill, and she is almost done with her shift.
“What are you doing?” she inquires, clipboard pressed to her orange vest as if for protection.
“I want my own fire,” says the young man with tiny eyes set close, just as a toothless woman in galoshes, a shift and red bandana emerges from the trailer. “Bader, gimme that thing. You ain’t doin’ what I think you’re doin’. Take your play matches. Go on while I get ready. I ain’t gonna holler after you, boy.” Bader drops the rake, grabs the large box from his mother like a prize.…
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Feelings don’t last. That’s what a therapist once told me. They disappear he said. I agreed with him until yesterday when old feelings resurfaced for the first time in ten years. I was in the Cat and Cage drinking with Mark Dunne. We were catching up on old school days. Alison, his wife, came in about two hours after we arrived and she was excited. She had photographs of a friend’s hen night and was passing them to Mark and me.
I didn’t take much notice of the photographs until I took a second glance at one of them. There stood the girl who was to get married, whose name escapes me and Greta O‘Rourke. I finished my pint and asked Mark and Alison what they wanted to drink.…
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On Monday, July 12th, 1999, at 3:15 pm, Sheriff Elmer Howe thought it curious that a forest green Ford Explorer sat alone in the shade of an oak tree in the student parking lot of East Pocono High School. Students left the lot completely empty in high summer.
The Explorer looked just like the one belonging to psychologist Arthur W. Rohrer, Ph.D., P.C. Arthur was married to Kimberly, which made him Elmer’s son-in-law. Arthur had left Philadelphia years ago to counsel troubled marriages in Scranton, but his office was a good twenty minutes up the highway. How strange.
Elmer pulled his squad car into the lot and parked behind the gymnasium. He looked for summer athletes training in the fields, but there were none. He used his shoulder radio to call the Explorer’s license plate in to Marie at the station.…
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She has carelessly parked her car, not parallel, but at a slight angle at the side of the highway. She is parked on an incline, where whatever is on the other side, after the peak, is invisible to her; an unknown picture that will only reveal itself once she reaches the crest and starts her descent. It could be a thing of beauty, like when your vehicle is winding through the mountains, going up a steep hill, the car’s hood higher than your line of sight and then, suddenly, your body reaches the crest, and spectacular beauty is laid out before you: crisp silvery snow-capped mountains, a rolling river winding at their feet with shivering birch leaves on trunks of clean, white bark at the river’s edge.…
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When I heard about the government finding non-human biologics, my first thought was whether aliens would find me attractive. I fare pretty well with a specific type of woman, the hipster artsy girl. Often owns a cat or two, regrets none of her tattoos when she should regret them all, and talks way too much about authors whose books I can’t get past chapter two. My type is the blonde cheerleader from movies, often called Stacy, and driving a convertible VW Bug. Unfortunately, I’m the furthest thing there is from who they go for: muscles, a scruffy face, and a cool swagger resulting from a belief they can do anything. My type could be aliens, but I’ll have to wait until Congress approves the release of visual evidence.…
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My city is not a city, no more than a bare town that’s slowly growing. It’s got a Bi-Mart and a Safeway and a McDonalds—people never go there, though, just Big Burger across the street. It’s been here longer, and it’s not a chain, and my people here don’t like change.
The folks who live here aren’t slow by any means, but we like slow. We like watching the world subtly change around us, and we like taking our time as we live our life. We remark on the sunset every night, saying things like can’t believe it’s still light out! for half the year and can’t believe it’s already dark out! for the other half, accordingly.
It’s a town surrounded by the countryside, and there’s the great big Coleman ranch that’s got cows and horses and other animals.…
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You gotta get a good rock. A big one. But not huge. Come down the hill to the end of our grass. There. An “X” marks the spot — we’ve got lotsa rocks around it. It’s not an “X” really, but mommy says the place is “precious,” so it’s kinda like treasure. So you grab one rock. It’s smooth, fits in your hand, and it’s not too heavy.
We need paint. Come up the hill to my house. Shh! Mommy’s being quiet in her chair. We can get some nail polish off the dresser in her room. It’s a kind of paint. Mommy won’t mind. She doesn’t see me when it’s her quiet time. Look, here’s a good red one beside the picture frame. The photo’s kinda old.…
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