My father bouncing his leg to slow rock music with me on one knee, telling me I should keep a special place in my heart for my teeth, to remember where I lose them, on the playground like he did when he was my age, fighting a friend named Bobby-Joe. Or else I could lose…

Charlie takes a shortcut by the park, which is draped with a green carpet on the north side, the only direction moss will grow in, and since we have time I ask him to pull over. He wants to get on toward Raleigh in case there’s a line to pick up our badges, which will…

When Rachel finally gets pregnant she will stop drinking for nine months and will be a responsible mother, money dedicated to diapers and prenatal vitamins and an espresso-wood crib and a thousand techno-gadgets to monitor the baby’s every breath. But for now, so long as it doesn’t affect the fertility treatments, she will continue to…

Constance Weatherbotham woke up wrapped in unfamiliar linens and screaming but thought little of it. Alone on her first night in the woods, it was only natural to be frightened. And her husband Richard was dead. Drilling equipment through the temple. Mistakes happen. And the baby curled up and expired in her stomach. Unfortunate, but…

Our grass is long enough that you wouldn’t see me from the street. Blades scratch. Redden the skin. It’s maybe an allergic reaction. Every night a headache knocks me flat. They might kill me. Three MRIs and no doctor knows where the headaches come from. We have chickens named after queens of England. They cluck…

When I think about Da, that late November morning in the park, I see the horizon line bouncing up and down smoothly and seamlessly. Da and that man called Adam huddled together, standing next to a park bench in black overcoats, rising and falling with the horizon… below the horizon… all of it locked and…

Look, Ty says, peeling off his gloves. Three full bags. Can’t we just do this tomorrow? It’s the rattlesnake migration again. Each year, falsely anticipated in early May. Each year, left to you and Ty, who doesn’t like you anymore, but who doesn’t think you know. A stretch of interstate’s been cordoned off; heat surges…

The husband is shapeless, like looking at something through gasoline fumes. He lacks the sharp definitions associated with those who take action. The husband and wife eat tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. Part of the husband’s incisor breaks off on a crisp piece of celery — that is how fragile he is. His wife is…

Father’s glances held Kilea to her seat, pinpricking up the bones of her back to the nape of her neck. Her brain throbbed against the inside of her skull, just slower than the pain pulse; colours twisted together into her muscles. Every now and then, the beat of both stuck, making it hard to get…

I’m a line-sit for the Ultimate Roller Coaster. At first, I thought the job would be depressing, everyone standing in line waiting to ride-n-die, but what I do is altruistic. I’m helping my clients out, making it easier for them to accept the end. At my last job, Forever Nails, I hated the clients. The…

One night Larry discovered a naked man who looked exactly like him. He was lugging a bag of trash out through the staff entrance of Mr. B’s Roast Beef when he saw the man stir by the dumpster. He was startled at first, then annoyed, assuming the man was one of the belligerent homeless guys…

Late in the night the cats took up meowing, nearing a howl. Geneva and Cheri heard them at the same moment — Geneva lying on top of the covers of the mattress she slept on and Cheri tucked tightly into her childhood single bed. Both of them left their windows open a crack each night…