His eyes focused, for a moment, on the contrast of her otherwise pale skin with the flush of her cheeks as she walked towards the spot where he was leaning on a fire hydrant. “Hello, handsome,” she said. “Hello, gorgeous,” he said as he extended his hand, palm up, and revealed a bright yellow lemon. [...]
“Look,” he said as he pointed at the distant lake shore where the early-morning mist lingered, depressing the plump tangerine lines of sunlight on the placid surface water. She turned and looked as they walked through the dew-covered bluegrass. “Indistinguishable,” she said. “Which would you choose?” He stopped them from going further and placed his [...]
The average annual snowfall for a small village just north of a long forgotten two-track in western Canada is just over 346 inches. This past summer, the road crew for the village went to the trouble of installing fans 20 feet in diameter along its three-block long main street. The intended effect of the fans [...]
When he stands, it is as a mighty lion stands – a deliberate struggle of a beast battered by carnivorous dreams. Restless and cold, he shifts through the monochrome darkness of night. With each step his paw lands with the thrust of an uncalibrated pile driver trying to beat down the house in which he [...]
Watching the international CNN station anchored by a woman with a vague British accent at 1am when I should be sleeping, but can’t because the temperature in the room I’m subletting is swealtering and the Chicago humidity hasn’t been rained out yet by the thunderstorms rolling through daily, is comforting. Comforting like being in your [...]
He stood, half seated on the antique writing table in the hallway. His stomach lurched. She turned off the hallway light. He surrendered to the darkness and slipped further down the front of the table until he was seated on the floor with his head on his knees. The weight of his error pinned him [...]
“I’ll take two,” I told the young waitress behind the counter wearing a pale blue dress and filthy grease-stained apron. Her blond hair was pulled back tightly into a bun that looked like a small abandoned barrel of hay. In a hurried motion she swept her untrimmed bangs behind her right ear. As her fingernails, [...]
Earlier today I was walking in the cold from my car to school. White Park, which surrounds an unfrozen pond that will be later used for ice skating or merely slipping around in shoes, was to my left. I was on my way to school to study more law. Something I do a lot of [...]
I have this image in my head of walking along a city sidewalk with you late at night. The street lights are glowing orange. There is a bench on the left. Everything in sight is covered in an inch of undisturbed snow. The path ahead seems to be converging on a single focal point with [...]
I used to write a lot more than I do now. I wrote mostly about my perception of my memories. The words that described the experiences I was trying to capture seemed more literal than the memory itself. If something didn’t happen exactly as I described it, what I’m trying to provide is the feeling [...]