The Fundamentals: Fifty years ago my mother laughed with our neighbor George Evers on his porch while my little brother Will flew into a rose bush. Of all the memories of my childhood this is the one that keeps resurfacing. The Perfume: My mother’s …
I. The President of the Strongest Country in the World sits quietly, alone, in the Situation Room of the president’s Historic Dwelling. He is vaguely aware of a tiny, almost pleasant, pressure deep inside his brain. A very large screen television is on, turned to …
You could say that this a story within a story within a story. Please understand. I am a novice writer, so I shall tell my story as it comes to me. I have limited resources; one leather-bound notebook, one pen and one bottle of ink …
“Do you believe in God?” “No.” “Why not?” “Cos I ain’t never seen him.” Michael and Marcus sat by themselves, alone but for the soft whisperings of a summer’s breeze. “Do you believe in heaven?” continued Michael. “No.” “Why?” “Cos I ain’t never seen that, …
1 I dive straight and deliberately into the pool and slice the still water into a thousand ripples. The sun streams through the glass gym walls. My body glides through the chilly lane toward the finish of a lap. The pungent smell of chlorine fills …
A truck with Oregon plates arrives in San Diego at dusk. When the driver slides open the cargo door, his Christmas trees are coated with lumps of snow and sheets of ice. There’s so much white he imagines an artificial forest smothered in flocking spray. …
Stuie’s always been nothing special. Even he knows, deep down, he is a consistently mediocre kid with straight Cs, not particularly handsome, and so-so in sports. In games, he eventually gets picked, but only after a long time, the kind of player where other kids …
