Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
When I was seven, I ran home from school every day so I could watch Batman foil one of the criminals who routinely plagued Gotham City. As often as not, Batman didn’t have to do anything because his bungling foes got caught up in their own schemes at which point Batman, played by the inimitable…
While reading poetry this afternoon, something about its associative nature caused me to wonder: whatever happened to Jeffrey Lidgate. Jeffrey was a childhood friend from elementary school. Lawren Harris P.S. We used to go after school to play at one another’s homes. The Lidgates lived in a small, box-like bungalow on the southwest corner of Elm…
While I was yet a teenager, the Nazis conscripted me to cook for their officers. As sous chef, I had to serve them breakfast. However, I had always been a subversive lad and so I hatched a plot. I would serve the officers omelettes made from rotten eggs and slowly this is how I would…
Note to Reader: This story is 4,100 words and takes about half an hour to read. Although the characters share names with me and my wife, these are fictional characters. That should be apparent from the fact that the fictional David Barker is tall and lean. David Barker, tall and lean, beige sport jacket draped…
He had the impression the three drivers were in communication, waving to one another through their frosted windows. Then followed a succession of clicks as each unlocked his door; a sound of rushing air…
I sat chilled and stinking and anxious and repeated it to myself like a mantra: Fuck the police. Fuck the police. Fuck the police.
The kid pulled off his jacket and, with an exaggerated flourish, hurled it into the crowd. Underneath, he had two octaves of black and white keys tattooed across his chest and the words: “Scales are for pussies!” As if that weren’t enough, he had “Fuck Hanon” in block letters between his shoulder blades.
While she waited for the water to boil, Amanda stared at her tiny head reflected back to her in the curved metal surface of the kettle, and she considered that maybe her life was beginning to feel as warped as it appeared to her in the kettle.
The thing is: this worry is not something that happens in my head. Whatever happens in my head is only a symptom of something more pervasive that overwhelms my body. I feel it in my shoulders. By the end of a day, it feels as if I’m carrying a massive weight that bows me down.
Barnabas Moynahan woke from his coma. Nurse Lydia was the only person to witness the moment. She was standing at the foot of his bed and was staring at his eyes when they flickered open. Everyone important had gone home for the day, so Nurse Lydia had no one to tell.
Tom and George sat on the low stone wall and watched how the tear gas, looking for all the world like tufts of cotton, scudded along the street and vanished through the trees in the park.
Apart from the tire swing, there was nowhere but the ground for Herman to sit, so he spent most of his waking hours with his legs thrust through the middle of the tire, winding himself clockwise until he could go no further, then unwinding counterclockwise until the spinning nearly made him vomit.
William had been brooding about it ever since he saw that tabloid photo of Harry holding the sleek phone to his ear. Now that he was off to America, Harry seemed to get all the good toys.
Garth Kaminski ascended to the throne on May 7th, 2019, the day on which the lead story on all the major television networks declared that Josh Hannon had died and on which the top trending Twitter hashtag was #worldsfattestman.
Ma used an agent named Helga Heimlich who showed up one morning to make sure I cleaned everything proper. There’d be no cockroaches, no bed bugs, and no half-smoked doobies on the balcony, not on her watch.