Jin-Soo taps an apple with the golf club. It flies over the sidewalk and onto the lawn, rolls for a bit, disappears into a hole. He shuffles backwards a step, takes aim at another apple, and swings. It vanishes too. The sidewalk is getting cleaner, he thinks. Above him, a crab apple tree…
Ah America. How are you? My name is Trent Lewin. I’m not a doctor or anything, but I have been known to heal the masses upon occasion. So I turn my attention to you, the confused and the enraged, and I choose to cuddle up with your enormous posteriors to offer advice as best I…
Fiction / Literature / Short Story / Writing
T-minus 3 days. But I suck at math, so let me back up. You’re surprised? Shouldn’t be. T-minus 5 days. There we go. In the hallway with Annette Benig’s twin sister. No kidding. She’s leans in. “You’ve got to be kidding.” I want to suck on her nose. “Nope,” I tell…
Fiction / Literature / Short Story / Writing
A pressing, distressing narrative this is not. It’s 1570 Spain, and I’m a missionary building a church in the middle of the forest. It’s 1960 southern United States and I’m a policeman shining the beam on a tree, and its leaves, as the sky shines bright with stars and people sing in the distance,…
Fiction / Literature / Short Story / Writing
You didn’t clean up before you got in the car and drove away. But I did. I stayed. You didn’t call when you got to the bar, and didn’t save me a seat, even though I asked if you could. I called, and you didn’t pick up. I sat in the kitchen and ate…
Jacob is a hat-builder. He makes hats for people with heads of all sizes. Some heads are round, others pointed, and now and then a head presents itself that is misshapen in some notable way, by cleft or protrusion – in any case, some condition that requires a mastery of hat-building. Jacob builds…
Ayyad El-Habri is a man who is best described as thoughtful, and optimally called by his last name. “El-Habri!” people have been known to cry across the street, and in a world full of people with the same last name, somehow that has always nevertheless meant this El-Habri: six feet tall and grey-haired from…
There are lots of them. When you meet one, here are some things you should say to them or do with them. Full disclosure – I’m not American. I’m not a voter in the election. But there’s this large Republican convention starting tomorrow and I was listening to the radio (a mistake, I know), and…
It’s the hottest May on record in this city. ‘May 5, 2015 Dear Mr. Martin, Hi Billy! Welcome to our building. Happy to have you here, and no problem about helping you move in. You certainly have a lot of stuff! Attached you’ll find a pack of tenant guidelines. If you have any questions,…
I am black. Oh rota, the blank person who walks beside me, what are you saying? That you want candy? We walk into a store, and it’s full of black people, how black they are and how perfect, but beside me is a blank person and he (or she) is nothing at all. Just…
You won’t believe me, but I’m not real. Not a real human being. I’m a robot. An automaton. Trent Lewin is an anagram (try it, and you will see), and that name was always a hint that something was different about who I am – that in fact, I am no one. I never was.…
Jamie is a midget – not really a midget, but close. This hasn’t hampered her life in the slightest, but she’s always aware of where she stands relative to everything around her: she’s constantly in a state of comparative analysis, assessing objects as they relate to her stature. Some are three-times-Jamie; others are half-Jamie…
