Whenever anyone at McDonald’s or any other place in his hometown of Lamesa, Texas, sixty miles south of Lubbock, would ask Sonny Echols Jr., “What’s it like over there?” he wouldn’t tell them about Royce Humphrey who burned alive in the Humvee in Rustamiyah, Iraq, October six, 2009, at 0800 hours in front of police…
They sat on the beach, the girl with the crinkly hair and the girl with the secrets. The air, the light, the season were chocolate cherry liqueurs, heat bursting but outside, the chill. The girls had their hands in their pockets and the girl with the secrets felt her heart, when it beat, press inside…
After deciding to call it quits again, we drive together back to our separate lives, my recently ex-boyfriend and I. Still don’t know why, we didn’t wait until the end of our vacation to say goodbye. Now we’re trapped in a car together passing through old towns and past brown signs marking history, lost lakes,…
You mumble, your head burps nonsense, words a river of babble-rousing slippitude – lids close like Viked pythonic lips. You don’t see me, fingers flexed, lusting. You’ll never open your eyes…again. Thank you. We’ll be in touch. he tucked his tail and scrabbled into the hall, past rows of dudes disarmingly like him, cigarette sparked…
In the lobby, after the show, “Dad,” you said, and touched his shoulder. That was all I heard, or needed to. I sat here once, your fingers said. I saw the world you showed me. The view was what it was— a bay, a bridge, a vacation or two. Perhaps a parade or a just-reached…
It was exciting to be in Spain and traveling with Ava. In truth, it was exciting to be anywhere with Ava. We walked arm and arm, wandered into charming cafes, and took in all the main sights. We were at that stage in a relationship where it was new enough to be filled with wonder…
Doug’s Food/Mood Journal AKA: LAST DAY OF FATASSERY Day 1 – 12/31/12 7:30 a.m.: 1) Half package of Mallowmars, three weeks expired. Verdict: White spots on chocolate, cookie plate dry and chewy, outer layer of marshmallow filling hardened into fibrous, crust-type thing. Definitely expired, but still very tasty. Maybe even better than normal. Should think…
1 My daddy worked as a shipping manager, packing train cars with odd-sized boxes of furniture. He filled every speck of space, arranging the cartons like shapes in a puzzle cube. Daddy could stuff a pregnant cat into a shoe box if need be and bury her neatly in the ground, lined up with the…
I – Scratch & Whip Your father taught you how to overcome boredom by taking you to the racetrack. On those long Sunday afternoons you and your younger brother yelled at each other in the backseat of your father’s brown Hyundai. The car parked in the shadiest spot on the lot with the windows cracked…
She was not afraid to walk beneath the towering structures of dinosaur bones, held together by wire that was made to be invisible. She moved slowly. She was in no hurry. Before looking at an exhibit she examined the plaque intently, then took two steps back and surveyed the thing with an air of a…
