We have been meeting like this, boats anchored in the middle of the lake each evening, for so long now that few of us, if any, can remember exactly when it began. Read more →

The Common-Law Wife of Old Trout ♦ The English Professor ♦ Frances ♦ The Hero ♦ The Coven ♦ Each Minute is a Work in Progress ♦ The "Linguistics Professor" ♦ Provisions Read more →

Scot Augustson ♦ Kelleen Conway Blanchard ♦ Bret Fetzer ♦ Jennifer Moniz ♦ Paul Mullin ♦ David Penn Read more →

Though her mind flashed the brief thought of drugging him with the leftover vicodin she was saving for a special occasion—what could be more special than that, she asked herself—tying something heavy around his neck, like that insanely heavy cast iron skillet he was so fucking proud of, even though everything fried in it tasted like old trout—and pushing him over the side. Read more →

“Every story is just another battle between the angels that fell and those that pushed them.” Read more →

Frances sighed. She took the wedding dress outside and set it on fire... Read more →

Nobody really wants to hear it. Not the truth of it. How it really happened. They want to feel good about it. They want the glow. And that’s why I don’t really want to get into all that shit. Read more →

Dieter and Gunther ♦ Perfect Teeth ♦ Whatever Was Coming Next ♦ The Winking Suicide Read more →

“Last night you were bemoaning --” “Bemoaning?” Gunther's hand went to his hip rendering him the epitome of someone who would bemoan. “I never bemoan! Bemoaning is beneath me.” “Well. Ok. You were not bemoaning so much as desticulating.” Dieter knew Gunther could not object to this as he had made the word up on the spot. Read more →

I got a little knife so I cut the twine, around his feet first, then his hands, and it’s not easy and the knife isn’t sharp and the lump won’t hold still, so it takes a while. He keeps looking at the guy, who is snoring—we’ll hear if he wakes up—but he keeps looking at the guy. Snap! Last ones, and the lump stands up and rubs his wrists. I figure my moment has come and I hold out my hand. Three pennies and a quarter. Then he kicks me in the face. Read more →

So yes, there was a tiny hand in her kitchen sink clawing its way over the edge of the dish drainer and it was crying. And that was something… new. But it was all new. And was new necessarily bad. Read more →

My father-in-law understood that he was flirting with clinical obsession, but he couldn’t stop himself—and more concerning, he didn’t want to. He strongly suspected that there was a special mystery about this window, and it seemed to him that the nation’s coagulating stasis was offering up all the time in the world to solve it. Read more →

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