By Author's Name

As I have but a limited holding in the Temple, and, moreover, slept on the evening of the 5th of April at Burmah Gardens, I considered it right and proper to fill in the paper left me by the “Appointed Enumerator” at the latter address. And here I may say that the title of the subordinate officer intrusted with the addition of my household to the compilation of the Census pleased me greatly—​ Read more: HTML 

In honor of April Fool’s Day, a Civil War-era practical joke.

For two days the quiet of the Rising Sun Tavern, in the quaint little town of Shearsville, Ohio, was disturbed by a drunken Democratic member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, who visited the town in order to address what he hoped would turn out to be the assembled multitude of copperheads, but which proved after all no great snakes! Read more: HTML 

“It’s perfectly simple,” said the Reverend Henry, adopting his lofty style. “We must cut the whole lot. There is no other course.”

“I don’t consider that your opinion is of any value whatever,” said Eileen. “In fact you ought not to be allowed to take part in this discussion. Every one knows that you have always tried to get out of Christmas presents... Read more: HTML 

I am not legal adviser to Miranda’s family; nevertheless she came to see me on business the other day. I saw at once by her serious air that it was something of first-rate importance.

“I want a will,” she said; “one of those things that people leave when they die.”

“Some people leave them and some don’t,” I said. Read more: HTML 

“Cauliflower!” shrieked Gaspard Volauvent across the little table in the estaminet. His face bristled with rage.

“Serpent!” replied Jacques Rissolo, bristling with equal dexterity.

The two stout little men glared ferociously at each other. Then Jacques picked up his glass and poured the wine of the country over his friend’s head. Read more: HTML 

I thought this Classic Flash was funny because its title seems so terribly appropriate: it’s an 1893 story that seems quite topical in this day of print-on-demand services. Enjoy! —​Ed.

I.—​Publisher’s Sanctum. Amateur Author discovered in consultation with Enterprising Publisher. Read more: HTML 

If wound stripes were given to soldiers on becoming casualties to Cupid’s archery barrage, Ronnie Morgan’s sleeve would be stiff with gilt embroidery. The spring offensive claimed him as an early victim. When he became an extensive purchaser of drab segments of fossilized soap, bottles of sticky brilliantine with a chemical odour, and postcards worked with polychromatic silk, the billet began to make inquiries. Read more: HTML PDF 

“Heavens!” exclaimed the aunt of Clovis, “here’s some one I know bearing down on us. I can’t remember his name, but he lunched with us once in Town. Tarrington—​yes, that’s it. He’s heard of the picnic I’m giving for the Princess, and he’ll cling to me like a lifebelt till I give him an invitation; then he’ll ask if he may bring all his wives and mothers and sisters with him. That’s the worst of these small watering-places; one can’t escape from anybody.” Read more: HTML 

Ed. note: This isn’t your typical sword-and-sorcery tale. Is it?...

“Fell Sorcerer, your evil reign is at an end!” Sathrus said. He flicked his long blonde hair to one side and raised the Sword of Khandalon above his head, rippling muscles ready to strike the fatal blow. “As sole heir to the ancient line of Khandar, I shall take my rightful place as King, and bring justice to the land—​” Read more: HTML 

In the lee of the well, Branwen crouched. She pursed her lips and whistled at the mockingbird. It flicked its long tail up and down, hopped two steps toward her and one away, its head turned sideways. She whistled again. It hopped nearer to the crumbs she had laid for it.

“Alas for Branwen the White, who suffers every day,” she sang to the mockingbird.... Read more: HTML 

I reached into my jacket pocket, cursing under my breath, and ordered another cup of coffee. We weren’t supposed to smoke in Café Blue Moon and I wasn’t going to risk being asked to leave. My interest in the sidhe took priority over comfort. My impatience was an obstacle that I would stalwartly ignore. Annoyed, I tore up a paper napkin, meticulously ripping it into confetti-like shreds.... Read more: HTML 

“You have to be the best in the world at something.”

My father couldn’t have made his point any clearer if he’d spoken in all caps. Maybe he had.

I must have been about eleven, which would shuffle my brothers’ and sisters’ ages from thirteen for Maria, twelve for Joaquin, then myself—​the bridge between older and younger—​and so on to Bell, little Boo, and Miguelito, who was only ten months old.... Read more: HTML PDF 

My sister Chiru has beautiful, rich, warm brown skin. Mine is like onionskin paper, yellowed and dry and fragile. The few wisps of hair that grow on my scarred scalp mock the thick, black waves that fall past her shoulders and would grow to her waist if she let it. She is poised and correct in her posture, where I am bowed and curled like a crescent.

She is perfect and I am flawed, and she hates me. Read more: HTML 

It’s no joke trying to find performers for a stage play since the end of the world. Who’d want to be a casting director in the zombie aftermath?

We’re supposed to be putting on Macbeth at the Royal Theatre. Not my choice; gloomy bloody play if you ask me, but it’s still all the rage for the survivors. You’d think they would want something more upbeat after all that putrid resurrection hoo-hah. Personally, I think half of them are such gormless twits that nobody will notice the difference once they start to zombie, too. Read more: HTML PDF 

“Mind if I ask you something?”

It took me by surprise. I hadn’t noticed the guy standing next to me, there in the multiplex lobby. Minutes before, Lucille and I had been strolling toward the doors after seeing the new Spiderman movie; then she let go of my hand and made her way toward the ladies’ room....

“You mind if I ask some questions while we wait?” Read more: HTML 

This story took the laurel in Life Magazine’s Shortest Story Contest, and was published along with 80 other stories in 1916.

Doctor Burroughs, summoned from the operating room, greeted his friend from the doorway: “Sorry, Harry, but you’ll have to go on without me. I’ve got a case on the table that I can’t leave. Make my excuses, will you?”

“There’s still an hour,” replied the visitor.... Read more: HTML 

“Oh, for the love of...” Seamus shifted from foot to foot, one pudgy hand fingering the clover in his shirt pocket. The thought of using it sent his heart fluttering, but his fellow leprechauns were dying all around him, cut down by a swarm of chittering fairies.

“Aieeeee!” the winged pests cried as they flitted through the air, slashing with their sword-like wands.

“You’re going to have to use it,” Seamus muttered to himself.... Read more: HTML PDF 

The fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead: he had always been a hard man to convince. That he really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit. His posture—​flat upon his back, with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation—​... Read more: HTML 

From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, December 2, 1877.

I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a narrative of my journey from New Orleans to this polar region. It is cold in Chicago, believe me, and the Southron who comes here, as I did, without a relay of noses and ears will have reason to regret his mistaken economy in arranging his outfit. Read more: HTML 

John Mortonson was dead: his lines in “the tragedy ‘Man’” had all been spoken and he had left the stage.

The body rested in a fine mahogany coffin fitted with a plate of glass.... At two o’clock of the afternoon the friends were to assemble to pay their last tribute of respect to one who had no further need of friends and respect.... Read more: HTML PDF 

Lydia turned out the light, picked up her backpack and opened her window. She was expecting the gust of cool night air, the smell of freedom and the call of the dance floor. She was not expecting the shower of gold.

“Ow!” She threw her pack up as a shield from the heavy, glittering hail. “Son of a—​ow!”

Lydia swung her backpack through the air,... Read more: HTML 

I paint whiskers on my face with bath water. The water doesn’t stay, but the whiskers remain. I prowl around the house in my bathrobe.

The cat is washing herself on the rug. I kneel down to show her my fresh whiskers. “Meow,” I say. She flicks her tail in disdain, as though I’m any other human.

Dad looks up from his newspaper. “Eyra, stop that.” Read more: HTML 

I’ve seen a lot of dives in my line of work. Tonight’s bar was no different. The sign over the door identified the place as Beyond The Pale, and from the condition of the lounge it was clear this one lived up to its name. A dingy film covered the linoleum floor, giving it the color of bile.... But the décor, or lack thereof, was of little concern. I needed a drink, and I needed it fast. Read more: HTML PDF 

Yes, it’s true what the crows say. My heart is filled with straw, my brain is imminently combustible, and I hang from a gibbet in a field of green, like a criminal, legs broken and dangled beneath me. It is also not blood that animates me, but the wind, such brief motion being just enough to scare away all but the more brazen of birds.... Read more: HTML PDF 

Dhar Ry sat alone in his room, meditating. From outside the door he caught a thought wave equivalent to a knock, and, glancing at the door, he willed it to slide open.

It opened. “Enter, my friend,” he said. He could have projected the idea telepathically; but with only two persons present, speech was more polite. Read more: HTML PDF 

There’s a sink and drinking glasses in Mom’s room. I know I should take the pills right away before she wakes up. Instead I stand in the doorway and stare.

Mom looks bad. An oxygen tube loops under her nose, and her skin is puffed and grayish-yellow. An adhesive medical patch sends painkillers into her neck. Below the blanket, printed with a nice homey flower pattern, she wears adult diapers. Her body can no longer sustain itself. Time to go.... Read more: HTML PDF 

On the red velvet seat of a first-class railway carriage a pretty lady sits half reclining. An expensive fluffy fan trembles in her tightly closed fingers, a pince-nez keeps dropping off her pretty little nose, the brooch heaves and falls on her bosom, like a boat on the ocean. She is greatly agitated.

On the seat opposite sits the Provincial Secretary of Special Commissions, a budding young author... Read more: HTML PDF 

A man carrying a small red box in one hand walked slowly down the street. His old straw hat and faded garments looked as if the rain had often beaten upon them, and the sun had as many times dried them upon his person. He was not old, but he seemed feeble; and he walked in the sun, along the blistering asphalt pavement. On the opposite side of the street... Read more: HTML 

It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows.

Brantain sat in one of these shadows; it had overtaken him and he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep his eyes fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the firelight. Read more: HTML 

We perch next to the glass, where window shoppers can press their flushed faces against the panes and ooh and aah at us. It is shopping season. We know because they cover their hands in cloth, and the sky falls white and fluffy around their feet.

They hurry by in twos and threes, carrying bags and boxes clutched close to their bodies.... Read more: HTML 

This story is from the November 1962 edition of Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction.

It was written at a time when communication required much more effort, and this story is, as a result, a little bit difficult to read. Be prepared. But it pulled me along, and I hope it does you as well. Enjoy! —​Ed.
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Green metal beetles filled the sky. Electric death crackled off their deadly antennae and fell on the city below. It played up and down the crowded streets, shattering buildings, boiling asphalt, vaporizing cars.

Dull olive-drab shapes huddled against the crumbling remnants of a wall. One of the men cursed under his breath. Read more: HTML PDF 

I’d just turned the key in the ignition when I saw the birds.

They’d swooped past my car into the alley in front of the bank parking lot. When I looked up, I could see the pigeon on the ground, at the base of a brick building. It was in trouble, trying to get up onto a windowsill; flap as it would, it couldn’t get enough lift. One wing was hardly moving. Read more: HTML PDF 

Last year, we published a feghoot on April Fool’s day. We’re doing it again this year, I’m sorry to say. What’s a feghoot, you ask? I’m so glad you did...

“Don’t go in there!”

“What?” Mirza Khan turned to look back at Adelaide, tripped over the shin-high railings and fell over. “Ow!” He rubbed his bruised elbow and glared at Adelaide.

  Read more: HTML 

“I’m Radok,” he said to her when everyone was gone, and steam hissed gently from his vents.

Sandra hadn’t noticed him in the audience. How could she have? They came every night and sat at their tables with rattles and creaks. Gray-blue visages bathed in the golden light from Outside. Here a steel leg crossed over a many-jointed knee, there a dozen long fingers laced together in a steeple. Read more: HTML 

Every morning Bobby visits Chuck. He goes down to the basement and rattles Chuck’s cage with his cane. Chuck only snarls and spits, and grinds the rotten stubs of his teeth—​gnish, gnash, gnish, gnash. He’s a real codger, Chuck is. Should have seen him back in the day, though. World ain’t got zombies like Chuck anymore.

As a boy, Bobby liked to climb the town walls... Read more: HTML 

I remember the time my mother took me to see the city where I was born. She was a young woman then. There were sea-birds rippling through the warm white sky high above her head, drifting like ashes on the summer breeze. I was in her lap, slightly nauseous from the motion of our vessel on the cresting waves.

“Look, sweetheart,” she said, her chin moving against my head as she spoke.... Read more: HTML 

The minute the nose of my Honda Civic points north on the 5, my hands begin to sweat, my breath goes shallow, and somewhere down in my lower intestinal tract I feel a rumbling similar to distant thunder, just not as pleasant. Don’t Go Home is the first cardinal rule in Dani-Girl’s Guide to Getting Everything Right, and after a lifetime in Lomita with my German-Irish father, Rule 1 is easy to follow. Read more: HTML PDF 

“One of the most beautiful things that ever was done, perhaps,” said Inspector Wield, emphasising the adjective, as preparing us to expect dexterity or ingenuity rather than strong interest, “was a move of Sergeant Witchem’s. It was a lovely idea!

“Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day, waiting at the station for the Swell Mob. As I mentioned,...” Read more: HTML 

Captain Baird stood at the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had in his desk but never brought out except when he was alone,... Read more: HTML 

I can pretty much find anything. It’s my superpower. It was always below the surface, in the backwaters of my brain, just waiting. I’m dead certain it was my kids and husband that finally forced it into the open.

“Hon, have you seen my garpledeybip?” Like I knew what that was.

“How should I know? I don’t even know what color it is.” Read more: HTML 

I sat one April in Provence on a small hill above an ancient town that Goth and Vandal as yet have forborne to “bring up to date.”

On the hill was an old worn castle with a watch-tower, and a well with narrow steps and water in it still.

The watch-tower, staring South with neglected windows, faced a broad valley full of the pleasant twilight and the hum of evening things:... Read more: HTML 

...The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing could be done for them, I thought—​nothing. And then my thoughts were interrupted by barking dogs. Every dog in the street seemed to be barking—​every kind of dog, not only the little ones but the big ones too. They were all facing East towards the way I was coming by. Then I turned round to look and had this vision, in Piccadilly, on the opposite side to the houses just after you pass the cab-rank.

Tall bent men were coming down the street arrayed in marvelous cloaks. All were sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most of them wore strange beards. They were coming slowly, and they walked with staves, and their hands were out for alms.

All the beggars had come to town. Read more: HTML 

In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was unsightly, and because She couldn’t help it, and because he never did anything worth doing, and because She would.

And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart thinking only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this intolerable treatment.

But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They all noticed it. “What are you up to now?” said Love. Read more: HTML 

As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang.

“How ever do you do it?” the poet said, for he knew bird language.

“It was like this,” said the blackbird. “It really was the most extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me all of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that the world has ever seen....” Read more: HTML 

This Classic Flash from 1915 is, yes, the old tale, but retold with a political flair and a funny and cynical twist at the end—​as good as any modern commentary might be. Read more: HTML PDF 

Disconnected. The desire for immediate reconnection was so strong it hurt. Carefully removing the nutrient and waste tubes from my body, I stepped away from the jack, legs barely able to take my weight....

I’d pushed the limit this time around. Twelve days. Two hundred and ninety-two hours, to be exact. Read more: HTML 

“Bet you fifty!”

“Aw, make it worth while.”

“Two hundred!”

“You’re on. Let Jack hold the stakes.”

“Suits me.”

Four hundred dollars was placed in the hands of Jack Strong by the disputatious sports, and he carefully put it away with the lone five-dollar bill of which he was possessed. Read more: HTML 

We recognize that some who cope with dyslexia will think we’re making fun of them. Please read Carl’s forward. —​Ed.

Entry: The DOG (Dyslexic Geek Organization): In these climes of specialized tubs, it snot atoll surprising there’s a club for...

Nate finished reading the entry, closed the Dyslexicon, and left the library with a growing realization that he must become a part of the DOG. This is his tale. Read more: HTML PDF 

A few, the type who own rubber boots and full-body raingear, like Lawrence and John, stay. Hell, it’s the ten-year flood zone. They knew the bursting river would raise unlocked garage doors and set floatables free. Refrigerators tip, careen, and dump possessions. Anything wood floats.

Gary is dead in the hearse across the street... Read more: HTML PDF 

Stu is driving to South Lake Tahoe to take his post-partum-strained woman to the snow, to take his nine-week-old infant through a storm, to take his neglected dog in a five hour car ride, and to take himself into his woman’s good graces. And he’s hungry. Even though Stu has considered, more than once, stopping the car on the whitened highway and plunging himself over a cliff so he could plop into a cozy pile of snow and hide until his wife is logical again or the baby is able to tend to itself, he’s not dressed warmly enough for months or years in a snowbank, he has no snacks in his jacket, and he must focus on The Family. Read more: HTML PDF MP3 

“And how old were you when you died, Mister Beauchamp?” Joan Rothman asked, leaning back in her chair. The scientists watched her behind the one-way mirror, hands clasped behind their backs.

“Twenty-seven,” the corpse replied, more gurgle than speech, as it gazed idly around the interview room. Joan jotted down the response, then chewed pensively on the tip of her red pen. Read more: HTML 

Just as the sign says, my friend. This booth is hardly grand, and the fair isn’t exactly surpassing its county roots, either, is it? Shouldn’t the truths match the environs? Anyway, if you truly wanted capital-T Truth, you would stop at nothing to seek it on your own. You wouldn’t find it as a passing fancy from a grifter on the midway. Read more: HTML 

Dr. Albrecht woke from his afternoon nap to find himself on fire. At least, that’s how it felt: like someone had taken an acetylene torch and given his body a good talking-to. In the seconds it took him to wake, scream, and leap from the cot, tearing off his nightshirt and batting wildly at flames that, to his surprise, did not seem to exist, Albrecht came to the conclusion that the source of his agony went deeper than a bit of charred flesh.

His reflection in the bathroom mirror gave him his first clue: his skin shimmered. . . . Read more: HTML PDF MP3 

Today, the world ends.

Tuesday last, Reed grabs his best friend’s shoulders and says, “You’ve got to stop this.”

Luke looks at him and wonders why Reed is the only person in the world who hasn’t changed.

Three years ago, it starts with Luke covered in blood that is not his own... Read more: HTML 

I heard Susan’s small sigh before she sat beside me, so I made room for her on the roof. A man behind us wept softly; she turned, giving him a small, encouraging smile.

“Mister Valeda,” she muttered, when I didn’t check to see.

“506?”

She nodded. “His wife shot herself this afternoon.” Read more: HTML PDF 

Act II: A single eye stared back at me, its somberness swept by a long-lashed blink. On the top bunk, my step-son lay on his side, head sunk to his nose in a pillow, and watched me get ready to state my position. A comforter snugged up to his smooth jawline and humped over his slender shoulder as it spread over the bed and smoothed away the rest of his body. Read more: HTML 

His own saliva wakes him up.

The icy patch on his face tips him out of the warmth he mustered from the newspapers pitched against the restaurant grate in the alleyway. Gabe checks the clockstrip he filched from a street vendor. 1/10/2015... 7:22 a.m... 18 degrees F...

A shelter tonight. He hates being locked in, but it beats frostbite. More from the strip: Read more: HTML 

The image was particularly nice: a yellow and black weaverbird caught in the act of building one of their hanging, gourd-shaped nests on his anti-tank cannon mount. It was a keeper; Akili just had to decide which picture to give up in exchange. He had plenty of power left in his superconductor ring—​enough for years of twenty-four-hour imaging. But not enough memory.... Read more: HTML 

Alexa Cambridge reported to the Human Registration Center as instructed by the Braxian governor. The room looked like a polling place on election day, frantic with women at two dozen stations. Alexa read her kiosk’s instructions, with its famously fractured English, and began.

> Test Set 1:
> You knowing you subject of Brax Empire? Read more: HTML 

“Broken robutt,” Kent said. He picked through a bin of replacement body parts, but couldn’t find an exact fit. “Crap. I’ll get my butt kicked off, too, if this assembler’s not back on the line within the hour.”

Sarah rummaged through the manufacturing stock and found a curved copper part with about the same dimensions as the flat plate that Kent needed. “Can you make this work?” Read more: HTML PDF 

Some folks see the hand of the Lord in happenings that nothing but dumb chance. They say He separate people or bring them together by His own plan. Well, I say God don’t bother Hisself with our daily affairs, so if you see a man in a place you don’t expect, then that just one of them things. Ain’t no beam of light breaking through the clouds or angels singing hallelujah. Just is, is all. Read more: HTML 

You can’t harvest a crop without killing something. A combine ain’t particular, it cuts whatever’s in its path. There’s no malice in it, just a part of the season, like rain and heat. Food or nesting draws critters in, but come harvest the combine keeps rolling. Some run and live. Others don’t, and don’t. Read more: HTML PDF MP3 

Dom pried the thing out of the hard ground, then held it up to inspect it. It appeared to be a planet: its icy poles chilled his hands, and its dirty continents smudged his fingers as he turned it about in his palms.

Dom looked around himself from where he squatted. The empty prairie stretched for miles, and the grass nearby was free of any footprints. Read more: HTML 

At 128 words, it’s very hard to give a “teaser” for this story. The author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial shows that he can create a sense of isolation without using cockroaches or bureaucracies.

It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was walking to the station. As I compared the tower clock with my watch... Read more: HTML 

With election day approaching, I thought of “change,” which led to “Metamorphosis,” which led to Kafka. I offer this tiny classic—​just 87 words in translation—​in honor of election day. Interpret it as you will. Read more: HTML 

The Chief Surgeon sat in a padded leather chair, and I sat in a hard plastic one. The wall vents behind him blew fresh, filtered air, which dissipated into wisps before it got to me. Even on the top floor of Darber Institute, stale air smelled of ammonia. I coughed. He didn’t.

At last he said, “Mr. Jones, dozens of faster-than-light candidates arrive at the Institute every year. . . .” Read more: HTML PDF 

Savage, wild, the pack of Stockbrokers tracks its prey, loafers swishing in the shifting sands. For eight days they have been on the move without a kill. For eight days they have barely slept. Gray linen slacks keep them cool in the sweltering days, warm during the bone-chilling nights. Old tickertape streams from worn pockets and drifts to the sand, criss-crossing the terrain like icing on a fiery bun. Read more: HTML PDF 

I’m spending my week off fighting traffic jams, three tightly compacted lanes each morning. I bought the convertible special for this week—​traded in the Taurus for a shiny Mustang—​and I’ve got the top down. A sparkly red car. The kind of car Rutger will notice. Read more: HTML PDF 

Death came on black-feathered wings for a woman in Port Ruin. She was the wife of a simple man, no great magos, or strategos of the armies, but rather a reseller of spices traded from the sun-drenched south. Yet when Death arrived in the last minute of her life, he found the man standing before her bed, waiting for him. Read more: HTML PDF 

It’s the cold mud that wakes me, and the taste of duckweed in my throat. In my mouth, my nose, my ears. It fills my lungs, creeps behind my eyes. I burst through the slime with a half-formed scream.

I retch until I feel empty, hollow, withered. Stagger to my feet,...

But where is he? Read more: HTML 

I’ve never heard the end of Gustav Holst’s Mars. I came close, once, but then the world ended with the Martian invasion.

Did you know that 70 years before they attacked—​to the day—​Orson Welles broadcasted War of the Worlds?...

The night the real invasion came, I went to a Halloween concert... Read more: HTML 

Sujatmi left the jungle and approached the skeletal husk of the hotel. As her booted feet crossed the verdant edge of nature’s reclaiming, she heard the crunching of rubble and bone. The Pillow Boy appeared in the girders. “Mama’s gone,” it wailed. “She’s... just teeth now.” It piped and moaned as it clutched its filthy pillow to its chest... Read more: HTML 

In the valley of Nis the accursed waning moon shines thinly, tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas-tree. And within the depths of the valley, where the light reaches not, move forms not meant to be beheld. Rank is the herbage on each slope, where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths,... Read more: HTML 

Nyarlathotep... the crawling chaos... I am the last... I will tell the audient void....

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing,... Read more: HTML 

When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water that torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victims body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.... Read more: HTML PDF 

I hate the moon—​I am afraid of it—​for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous.

It was in the spectral summer when the moon shone down on the old garden where I wandered; the spectral summer of narcotic flowers and humid seas of foliage. . . Read more: HTML PDF MP3 

“You’re a robot, you know. I made you.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Nomie said. She put the tea tray down and settled into the lawn chair. “But I don’t think I’m a robot.”

“Programming,” Manny said, “I programmed you not to know.” He blew on his tea and sipped. Just the right amount of sugar and cinnamon. Read more: HTML 

“Tell him I’m not here.”

He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm’s length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room.

“He says you are, too, because he can hear you.”

The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say: “So much the better.” Read more: HTML PDF 

The doctor’s pen paused over the chart on his desk, “This is your third set of teeth, I believe?”

His patient nodded, “That’s right, Doctor. But they were pretty slow coming in this time.”

The doctor looked up quizzically, “Is that the only reason you think you might need a booster shot?”

“Oh, no... of course not!” The man leaned forward and placed one hand, palm up, on the desk.... Read more: HTML 

This game is called Is Love Possible? It’s a virtual game—​real cutting-edge interface software—​that (1) draws on your life, hopes, and fears; (2) may or may not, my therapist says, have any therapeutic benefits; and (3) costs over two grand with my therapist’s discount, and needs three more in hardware from Circuit City, Best Buy, wherever.

“Okay,” I say, to make him happy. Read more: HTML PDF 

So there we were: myself and Hannibal and Genghis Khan. Hannibal had the hill, while Genghis was sneaking round the rear.

Only for the lizard to call for another halt.

“What is it now?” I shouted.

The avatar appeared, all Greek robes and long flowing hair. He stood between me and the alien lizard and translated.

“He thinks you should choose only from the last three hundred years.” Read more: HTML PDF 

Billy didn’t want to be a Doofus. Maybe a scientist, or a zookeeper, or a musician. But definitely not a Doofus.

Unfortunately second grade was nearly over, and he had not found a white coat or a microscope, or a guitar, and he had missed the fieldtrip to the zoo.

And now this... a knot. Read more: HTML 

Irma Splinkbottom loosened the back string of her apron as she shuffled over to the sliding glass door in her kitchen. The temperature on the gauge outside made her hesitate. She knew Fall brought cooler temperatures to the small town of Sapulpa, Oklahoma, but 68 degrees at 2:13 PM.... Read more: HTML 

“Sabotage?”

Chief Engineer Hoyle nodded. “I caught Officer Jarimath mucking about with the safety controls myself.”

The commander turned around to stare at the dim yellow star that controlled this solar system. “And there’s no way to vent the fuel?”

“The relief valve is frozen solid.” Read more: HTML 

My future daughter-in-law Janey told me exactly how it would go down and what to say. She’s been doing this for a while now, so she had this Nancy lady down pat, from the extra-extra smile to the cautious handshake to the little sing-song apologies dangling off each phrase. Everything went just like she said it would. The words felt awkward in my mouth, like pieces of food that’re too big to chew... Read more: HTML 

My hands ache, ache, and when I look at them, I don’t remember them looking like this. Maybe it’s the skin, paper-dry and thin, like an old person’s. Do my hands look like this? I puddle cream in my palm and work it in, wringing my hands. Polishing them.

Scales. I should be doing scales, I think, and go for a cup of tea. The problem is, I don’t play the piano. And I don’t drink tea. Read more: HTML PDF 

My beach is quiet. It is just me and the eagle’s screech, the limpet’s sip, the suck of the ocean upon the rocks. Behind me sits a fisherman’s boat on its side. There’s a gash in the hull that curves up, like a smile. I am utterly alone. It is Friday afternoon and the locals are either preparing their restaurants, shops, and art galleries for the onslaught, or they are hiding. Read more: HTML PDF 

I lie on my cot, staring at the pine rafters. They treat us like children here, keeping us to a schedule, always requiring an afternoon nap.

A few cots over, Olive is coughing. Anyone would, with every window open and the dust blowing in. I wonder how much the doctors really know about our ailment. Dust makes us cough more, but still the windows must be kept open. Read more: HTML PDF 

The wake held for Sven Müeller at Karloff’s Funeral Home in Queens, New York, was completely unremarkable until a tiny nephew of Sven’s was lifted to kiss his uncle good-bye, but instead bit off the dead man’s nose. Women shrieked and strong men fainted and, when the toddler continued to chew and swallow the nose, his mother dropped him and vomited.

But the boy just grinned and said, “Chocolate.” Read more: HTML 

Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron. Read more: HTML PDF 

Very elliptical years, the 57th Century, or “Years of the Cat.” Practically nobody uses sentences. Anymore. Very eccentric. Tell story.

Am Time Bum. Name of ZigZag, honorable family, agent, sex-linkages. Manipulator and explorer of paraHistory via the Leonardo.

Journey to the Age of Styrofoam, the Coke Bottle Century, my favorite time, the 20th.... Read more: HTML 

“Men!” Saldana said, as though it needed no elaboration. Lise and Maggie nodded their agreement.

They sat around the Denny’s table on a lazy Saturday afternoon, finishing slices of pie. Saldana, three years removed from a five year marriage, had the most authority in these discussions. She understood this and kept the ball rolling. Read more: HTML 

We hit the spikes on Interstate 40 East in Texas, soon after the second-largest freestanding cross in the Western hemisphere dropped over the horizon and disappeared from our rearview mirror, along with the giant thing crucified on it. (All the faded tourist-trap signs claim that cross is the largest, but I look into these things, and I know the cross in Effingham, Illinois actually has a wider armspan.) Read more: HTML 

One time I happened to be in Puławy with a certain botanist. We were seating ourselves by the Temple of the Sibyl on a bench next to a boulder grown over with mosses or molds which my learned companion had been studying for several years.

I asked what he found of interest in examining the irregular splotches of beige, grey, green, yellow or red?

He looked at me distrustfully but, persuaded that he had before him an uninitiated person, he proceeded to explain. . . Read more: HTML PDF 

“You both have a very rare condition,” the doctor said to my twin brother and me. “In fact, you two are the fourth and fifth cases ever recorded in the hundred years of Martian inhabitation. It might be caused by something in the well water that effects a small number of people.”

“Can you cure it?” Tommy asked. Read more: HTML PDF 

Wheee. The death baby goes, wheee. It also gurgles something awful. We have a problem with them in the town, not the town proper but right outside. The death babies have gotten brave in recent years, crawling right up to the gardens and even to the homes.

Nobody knows where they come from, only that when one of us dies... Read more: HTML 

At 8:32 PM on June 16, 2024, Gerhardt Skarda conjured up Lucifuge Rofocale, one of the major demons of the Infernal Realm, and offered his soul in exchange for three wishes. He was granted, and received within 48 hours, irresistibility to beautiful women, the Chancellorship of Germany, and life everlasting.

At 11:54 PM on June 16, 2024... Read more: HTML PDF 

My predisposition for science began as a boy; then, grasshoppers were my fascination. I caught them by dozens, built wire mesh homes, and gathered a variety of vegetation, crabgrass, clover, dandelion weeds—​so they’d stay happy and entertain me. Occasionally one perched on a twig and peered out, as though knowing the cage wasn’t its indigenous habitat, cautionary, waiting for predators.... Read more: HTML 

I usually let the first part of a story draw in readers on their own. If I did that with Ron Richardson’s “Bus Ride”, it would probably use up half the word count—​at 175 words, this is most likely the shortest story that Flash Fiction Online will ever publish. It rings true to me, too, having once served in the U.S. Marine Corps. So kick back and give it a read. I promise it won’t take very long. —​Ed. Read more: HTML PDF 

Quiet. You sit quiet as a mouse in the corner. Push a little doll around and hum la-la-la so they forget you’re there while they have the cocktail hour.

That’s how you find out they’re killing Grandma.

Not a single bite to eat or a swallow of water. Your mother is killing her mother.

That’s their favorite punishment for you, too. Read more: HTML 

Joe Bastogne willed his leg not to bounce, as he watched his potential employer read his application. He knew the marks against him, but he said a silent prayer those faults would be overlooked. It was Christmas, after all.

“Mr. Bastogne,” Mr. Westcott said, “it says here you were convicted of theft. That right?”

Joe’s throat constricted and his stomach roiled. Read more: HTML PDF 

Donny Ray and Jim-Jim straddled their bikes on the bank of the stream and stared at the old Patterson Mill. Mr. Kent, the school janitor, had told them it had been haunted by a little girl named Sarah Tibbett since long about the 1920s. . . . Standing in the old mill’s shadows, Donny Ray could believe this was a place spirits dwelled. Read more: HTML PDF 

An English Prose Sonnet.

When the guy with the junked-out cars moved into the house two doors down, I said to Glenna,... Read more: HTML 

A Prose Fibonacci Sonnet.

Snow. Ice. Heavy skies. All flights delayed. Morris wished he could smoke.... Read more: HTML 

An example of a prose villanelle, used as an exemplar for Bruce’s latest Short-short Sighted column.

Lately I don’t recognize this country, the land of my birth. The contours of the land are the same. I can buy what I always bought in the stores. The weather has changed, though. Last winter, we had no snow, but the wind blew love letters to dead soldiers into drifts up to my knees. Read more: HTML 

An example of a metamorphosis story, with a dash of compassion, used as an exemplar for Bruce’s latest Short-short Sighted column.

In a little church by the sea, long after the old gods had begun to sleep, there was a preacher of the Christian gospel who earnestly worried for the souls of his congregants. Read more: HTML 

A powerful, first-person plural exemplar for Short-short Sighted #20. Read more: HTML 

This collection of six one-sentence stories serves as an exemplar for Short-short Sighted #19. I would put up a teaser here, but they’re so short that doing so would give away a sizeable part of the collection. —​Ed. Read more: HTML 

An exemplar for Short-short Sighted #18.

So the following summer when the second princess came to Old Kwaku’s hut, he said, “What do you want?”

“My father said that I must learn wisdom from you.” Read more: HTML 

An exemplar for Short-short Sighted #17, below, and a World Fantasy award winner.

On that last morning, anyone who came to visit me could see that I was dying. I knew it myself. As if I had cotton in my ears, I heard the voice of don Leandro saying to my wife, “Doña Susana, I think it is time to fetch the priest,” and I thought, yes, it’s time. Read more: HTML 

An exemplar for Short-short Sighted #16, listed below.

The secretary never had a chance to say, “Do you have an appointment?” Washington was already past her and opening the CEO’s door. Read more: HTML 

An exemplar for Short-short Sighted #15 on collaborating with MICE.

This afternoon, I’ve been digging a hole in the back yard for Miss Hought. That’s what she insists on being called, even though she’s a widow twice over. Read more: HTML 

An exemplar for Short-short Sighted #14 on Flash Fiction of Event.

After my favorite bill died in committee, I went to the conference room to view the body. Read more: HTML 

An exemplar for Short-short Sighted #13 on Flash Fiction of Character.

For the first two years of grade school, Jerry’s mother dressed her like a boy and gave her a boy’s haircut. Read more: HTML 

This story exemplifies Bruce’s column about Idea in the MICE quotient.

I have never fired anyone on the night of the Christmas party. Not quite. But my employees always give me a wide berth at the annual event. It reminds me of my failure to escape the family spice business. Read more: HTML 

One, the overgrown tangle of weeds that is the back garden. None of us owns the land. Not us, not Andy and Tomi in the flat above ours, not Enrico in the flat below. Enrico says “They should send a gardener round,” and we agree that yes, they should. Whoever they are.

Two, the black-and-white cat begging at the front door.... Read more: HTML 

Money. That’s the thing Paola’s lover, Evan, is afraid of. He is always worried—​it makes him physically ill—​that there will be too much money. Her anxiety, on the other hand, is that in another year people will still fail to recognize her on the street, that she will still have to produce an ID to cash her checks. This is a very real possibility. Read more: HTML 

When he was very young, he waved his arms, gnashed the teeth of his massive jaws, and tromped around the house so that the dishes trembled in the china cabinet. “Oh, for goodness sake,” his mother said. “You are not a dinosaur! You are a human being!” Since he was not a dinosaur, he thought for a time that he might be a pirate.... Read more: HTML 

After the divorce, my wife said she didn’t know who or what she wanted to be. When I heard that she had become a toaster, I felt vindicated. A toaster! Was that all she could be without me? And she wasn’t even good at it. She could only do two slices at a time, and they came out charred on one side and white on the other. Obviously, she was the one with inadequacies. Read more: HTML 

This story exemplifies Bruce Holland Rogers’s latest column on writing the short-short form, in which he discusses fairy tales. Read more: HTML 

This story exemplifies Bruce Holland Rogers’s latest column on writing the short-short form, in which he discusses using forms found “in the wild” as inspiration for stories. Read more: HTML 

Peg said to me, “You’re sure you want to come? They don’t always know until the blood tests come back.” But I wanted to take the day off. This was an occasion. Besides, it was a beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We took a streetcar, then walked two blocks.... Read more: HTML 

In the middle of the day, the frogs held a council. “It’s unbearable,” said one. “The herons hunt us by day, and the raccoons prey on us at night.”

“Yes,” said another. “Either one is bad enough, but both herons and raccoons together mean that we never have a moment’s peace.”

Next to the casket, I leaned on my cane and admired the work my brother practitioners had done on Elizabeth Fordham Roth. She had died at 80, but she did not look a day over 60 and might have only been sleeping. Physical reconstruction. Cosmetics. Those are the easier mortuary arts. It is the work of an afternoon to sew eyelids shut with invisible stitches, to close a slack jaw, to smooth out wrinkles and rouge pallid cheeks back to seeming life. My branch of the discipline is far more subtle and is never finished in a single afternoon. Read more: HTML PDF MP3 

Harry and Sheryl passed each other on the stairs in the bed and breakfast. “I felt like I had known you all my life,” she told him later.

“Like we had grown up together in a small town. What are the odds?”

“It happens to me all the time.”

“Falling in love in a bed and breakfast?”

“Letting good things happen...” Read more: HTML PDF 

Her mother had taught her that each meal, each dish made with her own fingers was a gift. You should cook with your loved one in mind, Sophie, her mother used to say, and strive for the best.

So Sophie had. Each meal was a feast, a gift of love.

Harold ate each with gusto, complimenting her, and never missing a meal. Read more: HTML 

When Straven, Prophet of Peekh, chanced upon Asha, Oracle of the Hyperopic Temple, even the gods raised their eyebrows at the romance that followed. Now one might think the two greatest seers of the realm could have predicted their own heartbreaks, but their potent foresight proved useless against a time-tested truth.

Love is blind.
Read more: HTML 

“I can do this,” I told my squirrel. If Babycheeks—​my totem and spirit-guide—​answered, it was lost beneath the bar’s raucous gabble of small talk and pick-up lines.

A hostess with shiny teeth and a clipboard approached. “Are you here for Insta-Date?”

“Yeah.” My voice squeaked. “I pre-registered. Joseph Ahanu.”

“That’s a pretty name. Hawaiian?”

“Algonquin.”

“Go ahead and sit at table H. . .” Read more: HTML PDF 

This is a quaint, odd science-fiction story from 1961 about a composer who goes off-world looking for peace and quiet. I’m still not sure what happened to his piano along the way, but regardless of the reason I’ll still feel less like the ugly American next time I travel to distant lands. —​Ed. Read more: HTML PDF 

The smell of wet ash slicked her throat. Jo felt the new skin stretching on her thighs and stomach as she stumbled past pools of plastic that might have been patio furniture. Blackened beams poked out of the rubble and the dead lawn crunched under her slippers. Nothing had survived that heat. Only Jo herself, strangely whole, scabbed and oozing under layers of bandages, still limped into the future. Read more: HTML 

“Daddy!” Rachel shouted. “There’s a robot at the door.”

Winston Sinclair hoped it wasn’t one of those sales bots. They were danged near impossible to get rid of. He picked up Rachel and raised the viewport she had used. The robot was three feet tall, grey, squat, plain-looking.

“Robot, what do you want?” Read more: HTML PDF 

“Stupid.” He took a moment to savor the word. “God, but you’re stupid.”

She stared back mutely. That, at least, he didn’t blame her for: what could she say, after all? Any intrusion would only make things worse. He’d established the rules for this long ago, and she hadn’t fought back, which he considered as good as consenting. Read more: HTML PDF 

Everyone knows the great desert is hot by day and cold by night. But that heat and cold is something you must know to understand. The midday sun seems to burn through your eyelids, so that outside the shade you cannot escape it; it pricks at your skin like a thousand needles, and sweat offers no relief because you could never sweat enough. It is harsh and cruel, and without water and a good guide you will not live long. Read more: HTML 

Things started disappearing on a Thursday. At first, it was only food. Angela left three cookies on a plate in the kitchen, but when she turned around, there were only two. She set a glass of soda on the coffee table, but when she left the room and came back, it was gone. She had no roommates, no friends to speak of, no pets—​there was no one to blame... Read more: HTML PDF 

The free carnival pass dropped through Penny’s mail slot on Wednesday, exactly ten months after her mother died, three weeks after her son was born, and seven days before she planned to drive her car off Myrtle Pier.

Penny had shoved the stack of letters behind the door, along with other bills piling up since she’d gone to the hospital... Read more: HTML 

Chance Johnson peered between the bushes at the hand-flapping mob of snot-green extraterrestrials pillaging his tackle box. While he’d gone to relieve his bladder on his favorite sumac, the little suckers from who-knows-where had claimed his stuff. They held up his jigs and lures like outsized earrings. One of them dropped his bobber on the ground and poked it with a stick. Two others had stink bait smeared on like war paint. Read more: HTML PDF 

In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:

“Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, choose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable.”

The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth said, eagerly:

“There is no need to consider”; and he chose Pleasure. Read more: HTML 

Consider that a conversation by telephone—​when you are simply sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation—​is one of the solemnest curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing a deep article on a sublime philosophical subject while such a conversation was going on in the room. I notice that one can always write best when somebody is talking through a telephone close by. Well, the thing began in this way... Read more: HTML 

Parker kept a sun in his desk. He fed it gravel and twigs, and once his gum when it lost its flavor. The warm varnished desktop felt good against his forearms, and the desk’s toasty metal bottom kept the chill off his legs.

Today Mr. Earl was grading papers at the front of the class, every once in a while glancing up at the 3rd graders to make sure none of them were talking or passing notes or looking out the window. Read more: HTML PDF 

Tom heaved Harold Tueller’s body overboard and gave it to the sea.

He listened as Harold thudded against Nautica’s side then splashed into the waves below. Nautica creaked and groaned a eulogy. Tom bowed his head and let her speak, then said his Amens.

The first of the crew had died not two days out of Havana. A horrible death.... Read more: HTML PDF 

I’m in Hell. That must be what this is. I can’t fathom a god who would possibly interpret this as heaven, crammed in this damned steamer trunk; me and twenty three other Wayang Kulit shadow puppets, entombed with the smell of ox hide and musty bamboo.

I dream of a life before this one. A life in which I spoke a language other than the one the Master speaks for me. A life in which I could move my own vulgar arms, speak my own profane will, make my own damning decisions. I’ve been here so long I can’t remember what I did to deserve damnation, but a shadow of that life tells me I do. Read more: HTML PDF 

I didn’t notice the note under my windshield until I’d already gotten into the car and put the key in the ignition. Immediately, a sequence of future events came into my mind. I would open the car door. I wouldn’t take the keys out of the ignition as I got out. I would automatically push the lock button down. Read more: HTML 

It suddenly hits me that I speak Japanese. I turn off the subtitles, and I do perfectly well without them.

Nonsense, my gangster friends tell me. No one can just suddenly be speaking Japanese. How are we supposed to believe you learned to speak Japanese? Watching cartoons? Ordering sushi? Reading novels on your cell phone? Ridiculous. Read more: HTML 

Vinnie instructed us to undress. “The little wimps are going for a swim!” he shouted. His gang was gathered down along the bank at the base of the waterfall. One of the bigger boys let out a whoop and yelled back up, Throw the losers over!

From the outcrop on which we stood, it was nearly a thirty-foot drop to the water.... Read more: HTML 

I know I’m going to die soon. It’s my heart.

Sometimes it’s painful, sharp pains that drill right through me; sometimes it’s a pin-drop that echoes throughout my body like ripples in a puddle. For me, all time stops.

My fate is certain. There are few specialists left, and those that are have kept to the big cities, where there is electricity and big hospitals. My concern is for my son... Read more: HTML 

He just wants to go home. He just wants to go home. He just wants to go home, but he can’t go home so he bounces. Boing. Bounces to pass the time. If only he were a year older he could go to school and he wouldn’t need to be dropped off here. He wishes that were the case. Because Roger doesn’t yet know that schools can be much worse places. Read more: HTML PDF 

In a dark universe strewn with worlds, in a dark world sprinkled with lands, in a land peppered with bright cities, in a shabby street, in one small room in a concrete tower layered with rooms, a stub of candle flickers and goes out.

Beyond the dark universe, watchers respond.

“Who reported this one?”

“The father.” Read more: HTML 

Every morning, the Human Clockwork arrived at the park promptly at 6:25. He’d set up his clock face behind his pedestal and then he’d arrange himself in front of it, and by 6:30 he’d have his arms just so, pointing straight at his feet. It was his duty to keep perfect time, and he never failed.

But this morning, there was a woman in his spot when he arrived at the park. He blinked at her, as if blinking would make her disappear, but no matter how quickly he blinked, she was still there. In his spot. Immovable. Impossible. Read more: HTML PDF 

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shunting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure—​a ghostly couple.

“Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered. “Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.” Read more: HTML PDF 

It was not abduction. I volunteered to go.

I trampled out the crop circle in the north field of the Suttlebys’ ranch, at night, just with a board of plywood and a long rope. I did not know what the signs mean, but I copied them. Took me all night, and the sky was pink above the barn, and my breath was fog. It was October, the best month for contacting... Read more: HTML 

One day when the chamberlain, Master Teng-t’u, was in attendance at the palace he warned the king against Sung Yü, saying: “Yü is a man of handsome features and calm bearing and his tongue is prompt with subtle sentences. Moreover, his character is licentious. I would submit that your Majesty is ill-advised in allowing him to follow you into the Queen’s apartments.” Read more: HTML 

The thing about Ray was his insatiable thirst for blood. He has read every self-help book out there, including the Bible (“It doesn’t burn like I thought it would”), and even got hypnotized—​though he tried to bite the hypnotist. But his obsession got annoying. “You know what this popcorn needs? Blood.” “Let’s go get a soda and a little blood.” “Blood blood blood blood blood.” We all kept our pets away from Ray. Read more: HTML PDF 

Stephen cradled Mara in his arms. She was light, but awkward to carry because of her trees. A blood willow grew from her shoulder and hid her face behind a curtain of crimson leaves. Its trunk was pale and gnarled.

They’d taken this path to visit her father’s grove, back when Mara could walk. Now a cottonbone tree grew from her thigh... Read more: HTML 

The Colegio de Caribe was established for the foreign executives of Dole banana in Costa Rica to have a school for their kids, insulated from the locals. By the time my sister, Lisë, and I joined the staff, it served the spoiled scions of the town’s doctors, lawyers, and business class.... What I saw repulsed me beyond anything I’d seen that whole year. Read more: HTML PDF 

If Monica didn’t go to work, stayed home with Sam and let the care-giver have the day off, then the thing wouldn’t happen.

If she wasn’t there when the manager called her into her office, if she wasn’t there when they escorted her to her desk to watch her shovel her stuff into boxes, if she wasn’t there when they shrugged as she asked would they call her a taxi... Read more: HTML