After Unsolved Mysteries, “A Death in Oslo” Grab as much as you can leave No prints, black lace and a briefcase Of live rounds To disturb, dab Ungaro From Italian blazer lapels Cut out labels Teeth imprinted in isotope Acid to disappear When French was preferred Order in Flemish FromContinue Reading

“Where’s mom?” asked Cole. “She’s gone.” “Where did she go?” “I don’t know, all she left was this note: Don’t come looking for me.” The note was made up of cut-out letters from her collectible newspapers. She would never have destroyed those just to leave a message, no matter theContinue Reading

I never thought that a mole people invasion would happen in my lifetime.  They had always been there, waiting. We don’t know why, they just were. And then one day, they broke through the surface. Out of the blue. I had heard stories of it happening to cities far awayContinue Reading

Years of Settlement yoS 1 → Dhagren births two gallstones and plants them in the planet’s corrupted soil. The gallstones grow into radiant objects [a sword hilt & a melted ribcage]. Dhagren adorns their body, placing the former on their hip and the latter over their chest. The fusion emitsContinue Reading

For as long as he could remember, the barrel had sat in the backyard, behind a locked gate and a very tall fence. Only the father had the key, and three times a day, the boy would watch his father take a jumbled plate of scraps out to the backyardContinue Reading

It was just before sunset every twenty-four hours to the second. She appeared, whispered one word; then was gone.  I stood on the hill behind the house for fifteen years just before twilight at that exact same time trying to hear the word. Every time, a bird chirped, a truckContinue Reading

The ideal woman isvery brightly colored.She is shiny; her breastspoint in sharpconical assertion oftheir amazing defiance ofphysical laws; her waistturns where she leans orbacks away and, ifshe is clothed herstatic swiveling rumplesher neat skirt, shifting andhitching it over herneat hips. Her lapseems emphasized. Her legsalways exert themselves.If she is clothed,Continue Reading

You could, if you were so minded,dab another descriptor onto the page,something sunny like dazzle or a blotch of razory silver, glinting in a naughty knot of cursive, a wink or arched curve of pencil under a dramatic swath of glistening fringe.The eye would be brimful and green, the hairContinue Reading

“The cold rain began, a slanted pelting of big drops. Beneath the streetlight’s orange dome, the gutters already ran black. Somewhere, a dog barked.” Hey, that’s no dog! The solid, middle-aged woman pushed the typewriter’s carriage release back and to the left, then leaned down and cocked her head outContinue Reading

Killers had become brazen. Wednesday afternoon around 2 p.m., a gunman firing from the passenger side of a car shot a man on the sidewalk walking beside a ten-year-old girl. As Thomas Green collapsed, bleeding out on the pavement, the murderer grabbed his sister Chyna, jumped back into the carContinue Reading