The plum hangs there from the tip of his nose, the juice dripping down his chin, staining his white button-up shirt. He’s always doing stuff like that. Going for the laugh. But then no one laughs. Sure we point, make snide comments about how he still acts like he’s in preschool. You’d think he’d get…

The red-haired girl fights to keep her mouth closed. Often she holds her breath for minutes at a time. Once she even passed out. She’s tried sealing her mouth with her hands, even tried wrapping her wool scarf thickly about her face. Still, her breath escapes, making shapes of steam. It’s not that she doesn’t…

The spiky-haired boy appears down the path through the green belt just as the bus pulls away. He runs, papers flying from his backpack. The Bus Driver slows down enough to tease the boy, who reaches out a hand toward the door. The boy wriggles his fingers into the rubberized crack between the folding door…

begins and ends in the bus stop. Fear and time rule here. The Bus Driver has not yet taken human form. He exists only as a wish, a clouded prayer spoken on a frosty morning for relief from the bitter cold. I will carry you, He breathes. The shores of the bus stop extend along…

Before beginning my October residency here at Necessary Fiction, I’d like to thank Steve for inviting me to do this. In the two stories I’ve published with him, I’ve learned to trust his editor’s eye. During my residency, I’ll be serializing my novella, “School Bus,” which is part of a collection I’m finishing up called…

I started this writer-in-residence deal with excitement. I expected some pretty cool stories from the writers who volunteered. But what I never expected—what I should have known but didn’t—was that this project would grow to take on a true life, an aesthetic entirely its own and built around the bones of this never-was Ancient City.…

Science class. Patricia pays attention. Pays attention like she’s got credit cards full of it. All the plastic attention they can handle. The rest of the class pays attention to Patricia, the tight t-shirt even more tight over her melon belly. Chatter over her shoulder, food chain chatter at the front of the room where…

Years-years-years forward-forward-forward one of “you,” an Anatomically Modern Human (AMH) as you are calling yourselves, said something that resonated with me: Why was I born with such contemporaries? For the most part, posterity would misattribute it to Oscar Wilde, when they punched it on the coffee mug and on the tee-shirt in well-read typefaces, Helvetica…

it only looks like the real thing I don’t think of myself that way dress it up dress it down 100 ways to color your world the 5 big trends the latest ideas for a fresh new look classic clothes let you build a great new look domestic goddess that airy fresh feeling your dramatic…

Digitus II: Index What is an amulet? Sunshine. Chocolate. Ice. Vaccines. Wind. Cognitive behavioral therapy. What is a talisman? The rough axe he snapped in two after a day’s hard work. Her broken fingernail. Her yawn in the courtyard. His class ring with monogram and date, at the bottom of a lake that is cold…

The boy slept in parks amidst hunks of slag and ash-filled craters. He wanted to dream of the time before, of iridescent statues that swayed with the trees and of wide ponds that turned from water to ice with the touch of a hand. He was sure he could remember the existence of such things;…

You have got to fucking be kidding me. Here’s this woman making so much fucking money off of vampires that you could swim in it—but these vampires? They’re too nice to suck blood, and instead of sustaining massive first degree burns, they get all sparkly and glittery like they’re going to the goddamned prom when…