Mark Twain once said, “It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” Here in the heart of the Rockies this year, March 1st is a […]
When you were a child, white skulls used to follow you through the woods. You tried to catch a glimpse of them, but when you turned your head, their skeleton bodies would disappear, fading into the canopy. Only their bone-voices remained, clacking through the trees, knick knack, knick knack. And then how you ran! Not […]
When we hear they are coming, we bury our music in the backyard, deep underneath the roots of the sycamore tree where the forbidden music cannot break through the earth. We know the punishment for carrying music inside of us. We know that if we are caught with music, we will be sent away to […]
The night before Eli’s birthday, his mother made him watch as she jabbed a mop in a bucket and nodded toward the kitchen floor. She told him not to move. “Poison,” she said. “Poison, poison, boy-son.” The only light was the window’s moonlight and a bare bulb swinging in the pantry. “But I… I just… […]
Last year, you published two books. When they arrived, freshly minted from the press, covers pretty and sharp, your friends and family cheered. But you? Your emotions vaporized. All that was remained was an autumnal sadness and a sense of failure. If you’d been alone, it would have been worse. This year, you sold another […]
I hate how the chemicals took the hair from his head and the color from his cheeks, leaving the freckles around his nose to look like blood splatter on whitewash. And the machines that tick and beep. Tick and beep. Over and over. His eyelids flicker open momentarily. I cross my arms, lower my head, […]