Four-thirty a.m. They yell at each other from across the street, their voices echoing through the emptiness. Are you just going to walk away from me? After all this? What do you want from me? I want you to come here. Why? Because I need you. I’m […]
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The therapist, Dr. Blankenship, continued to stare down at the writing pad in his lap when she told him she had grown weary, and not only weary but bored with life. “Yes, that’s it, I’m bored,” Elise said. “And you think that by ending your life you […]
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On the surface, John Lancer seemed calm but underneath a fiery caldera simmered, ready to erupt at the first disturbance. He wasn’t a man you wanted to piss off. But Manny Morningstar was too bent on self-destruction, took too many chances, believed too much in his own […]
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The Kid stood up and with long strides and the clink of spurs on the hardwood floor strode over and placed his mug in the bin of breakfast dishes. Reston watched him slip into the oilskin he took from the coatrack next to the side door and […]
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Even before the summer sun began to paint the eastern sky, Rowan, in his purple headscarf and black eye patch, jumped out of his bunk and reached for his wooden sword stowed under the mattress. He yelled “good morning, mate” to Yellowbeard, yanking off the cage’s cloth […]
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Romero passed a quiet Thanksgiving in his studio. After the tumult of the past couple of days, he looked forward to his solitude. And now, the day after, he was back to work. He set a new canvas on the easel and began. A painting of the […]
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Romero walked back to the gallery and climbed the staircase to the studio above. Ignoring the painting on the easel in the middle of the room, he sat down at the desk and stuck a CD in the player. Whenever painting came to a standstill, he mixed […]
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The painter, Romero, stood in front of his painting, bored with it. He put his brush down and walked to the window. Outside the colors were fresh. For the first time, looking through the naked trees along Fourth Street, he noticed a small shop across the street. […]
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Oscar Flimmer, wearing a zoot suit, hesitated before he walked through the lobby of the Nez Perce Apartments, but once he stepped through the glass doors onto the broad sidewalk along Tower Street, the lone silver tooth in his smile caught the last fling of sunshine. He […]
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This is how it begins, standing in front of the toilet, three or four times a night, the stream broken and bashful. His body has betrayed him. But that’s all right. His mind has grown weary too. He stumbles back to bed. The planning begins next, getting […]
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