Naomi could still wear the silver-threaded sheath dress she had worn to the Blondie after-party where she had danced with the girl who would one day be Madonna. It was because she had danced with that girl, who was like propane in search of a match, that Naomi grabbed Joe before the party was over […]
The fire started somewhere near the southeast end of the building. It spread quickly through the open corridors — the wide hallways built specifically to allow wheelchairs and hospital beds to pass unobstructed — sucking in oxygen and climbing from the floor to the walls to the ceiling with ease. There wasn’t a sprinkler system […]
February 7, 2042 Glen Ellyn It’s a Friday afternoon, that last day. There’s over a foot of week-old snow on the ground. The last several days have been bright and sunny — too cold for snow — but today the sky is gray and heavy. Naomi and I are having a late lunch when the […]
When I got home from the brewery to the shithole basement my wife and I shared, I wanted to sleep but couldn’t. Not with the damned chip in my head. I cracked open the window for some air. Through the bars, a majestic view of a midwinter night’s dream in Zagreb, in the year of […]
Stepping into the glade is like stepping into another world. The landscape is desolate, painted crimson by the thousands of fruiting cranberry vines that claim the bog each fall as the other flora dies back. Their fruit bursts beneath the soles of your rubber boots as you walk across the spongy ground and you grimace, […]
The children load me into the trailer. Padlock the tailgate. Take the dirt road past the sanitation plant, the tannery, the strip club, the gun store. I’ve known nowhere but the farm, the pen, the milk bottles & dust & feed. The children laugh in the cab, turn their muffled music up. I put my […]
