The little men have been missing from Yuvie’s apartment for two weeks now. She knows they used to be there, hiding under the bed, sneaking into the pantry at night. She’d see them as she loaded the dishwasher from the corner of her eye. Yuvie knows it isn’t technically possible for there to be little…

My wife, Claire, is standing barefoot in the sandbox. “Come here,” she says, and I step in. “Take your shoes off?” she asks. The sand is cool underneath my socks. “Just stay here a sec,” she says. She’s holding the same slip of yellow paper I received after work. A policeman had passed them out…

Today at work, Steve had his annual review. It didn’t go well. His sales numbers have been falling lately — hard to sell anything in this economy — and he’s taking it extremely personally. He knows that technically his ability to sell air conditioning systems doesn’t reflect his character, but also, he feels strongly that…

1. I filled my mouth with wax and let it cool there until it hardened and took on the ridges of my palate and the folds of my tongue, then I opened wide until my jaw ached, but the wax could not escape. If I pushed it would dent and the ridges would scrape off,…

He does not have a top hat or a white rabbit. He will not pick your card. Doves will not fly from his cloak. He won’t saw you in half. Well, not literally. His act has only one trick, but it is unforgettable. Years later, people still find themselves consumed by it, paralyzed by its…

A wild strand of hair sprouts from Erin’s head, aiming vertically but with a sharp kink, as though it suddenly changed its mind. She attempts to brush it down, wetting it even in the bathroom at work, but it continues to spring back and point upwards. In meetings, she notices colleagues’ eyes navigating above her…

Remember that alcoholic you tried to help, the one you took to those meetings, those meetings you were attending yourself because you needed help to stop drinking and the only way to get it, they said at those meetings, was to give it? Remember those boxes he asked if he could store in your garage…

I’ve hit the face of God head on. The rain falls and falls in the black night. The moon slivers white on the horizon. The highway a grey thread, unspooling. I sit in the car trying to talk to my wife as we return from an aborted dinner in the city. And there it is.…

Denny’s father bent over the bottle on the coffee table. The magic had happened, the ship was inflated — sails and all — and encased in its glass sea. The trick, now, was to get the fly out of the bottle. The insect had crawled in before Denny’s father screwed the cap and planted itself…

“Fly, then,” she says. All quiet. Eyes are on me. The winter says I’ve got three seconds to learn how to float, or she will shrug my life out. At worst, she will go back to the party. The night will then follow her and we won’t know what to do with ourselves. What makes…

I read Lydia Davis on a train. An ex-lover gave me the book before we parted ways. There was a story, “The Dog Hair,” about a dead dog and his hair, and how no one could bring themselves to clean it. Several stories later I found a hair between the pages. I traced it with…

My mother bakes a lamb-shaped cake for Easter. She feels compelled to go all out because she’s worried my father’s lost soul might be wandering around the house. She’s convinced that Jesus will accept him if we all put on a good show. She’s sure they will spend eternity together despite what the church ladies…