She fell on top of me, burrowed her face in my fluff, hands smacking the down inside of me, legs kicking, wriggling, growing restless at the foot. Every night I gave her comfort, she told me her secrets, whispered in the meekest of voices of the taunts and the teases and the tortures of the day.

I get hit in the face... a lot. Dodge balls, basketballs, volleyballs, tennis balls, doors, walls, bird crap, baseball bats, rogue hands, flying sand, and just about anything else you can think of. Everything just seems to have an affinity for my face.

Bullets flew through zombies like needles through cloth, and doing as much damage. The four soldiers were the last of their platoon; the rest had long since fallen to the swarms of the undead.

“It’s your turn,” Addison grumbled, her voice muffled by the pillow she was planted into. Her eyes were crusted with sleep and she shifted her head over a little to avoid the drool puddle she had accumulated during the night.

Can you believe that? Absolutely impossible. The world ended three months ago. But if you think that’s why I’m in denial, you’re wrong.

I simply can’t believe that a guy like that can even exist...

I’m sitting in the middle of nowhere, on a hill looking toward the horizon. No tripod, just crossed legs and my elbows resting on my knees, holding an old camera filled with darkroom film.

You ask me If I know the way back home from here. I sing the words, “yes, dear” back to you like I’m someone else. You say “alright” because you’ve got nothing else to say right now; I respect that. I keep my eyes on the road. I’m not quite sure where you’re looking at this point

Even when she was young, Sonya had never been afraid of the supernatural.

Embers in my hair, black dust getting to my lungs. Red, yellow, purple, blue fire in front of me, behind me, beside me. Above and below me. Within me.

When we finally start talking to each other after the fall, huddling on the side of the island where the black-eyed humans can’t hear us, we all tell the same story. A day that started with the sun rising and waking up and going off to whatever it is we do during the day.

momma momma momma
it was ricky it was ricky

momma don’t believe that it was ricky who done it
she thinks i killed him

momma momma momma
don’t call the fuzz
it was ricky it was ricky

I feel that if I move from this spot I will die. But I take a step forward and don’t.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

It’s 10 pm on a cold-for-California winter night, and there’s nothing I want to do more than to leave the ice cream shop. I drag the mop along the floor behind me, letting its weight act as an excuse for my lack of movement.

Zachary sighed and put a hand to his forehead. He took off his glasses and rested his head on his arm, wishing he could find even one decent actor.

“The End.”

On a cold February evening I learned one of life’s biggest lessons: appreciate what you have at present because once it’s taken away from you, all you’ll have left are memories. For me that ‘it’ was my fifteen month old niece, Bano.

Billions of miles away, the Oort Cloud orbited the Sun in silence. The cloud, consisting of thousands upon thousands of chunks of ice and rock, formed the edge of the Solar System, millions of miles past Neptune.

Even now that she’s gone they won’t stop moving and knocking, I wanted to say How could you say that you love her when you won’t leave her alone, and Darl knows it and instead he sets fire to the goddamn barn. The goddamn barn.

Every so often there are nights when the veil between worlds is so gauzy and thin, that travel from one to the next can happen as easily as crossing a bridge. Some of these nights follow the rigid calendar journey of the earth, moon, and sun.

Reading should never just be
considered an option.
A life without reading, not
understanding words, only
spots on a page, with the power
to change worlds, but they’re
dead without a voice, no meaning
till they’re read.

I hate putting my family through pain
If I could wrong my rights I would be sane
Until that point I hang my head in shame

I wish not but blame myself

For what I did I know not
Help
They know I do have faith
Even though I’m in this deep dark place

“Within the surface of the fleeting river the wrinkled image of the city lay.” I stopped and observed this for some time deep in thought about how much I wanted a gas-powered sweater. Sadly, being a stand up comedian, I had little or no money.

Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night? You look around and all your clocks are flashing. Blinking, on and off, on and off. You think to yourself, was it supposed to storm tonight? You decide the best way to find the solution is to check outside.

A long time ago, in a place far, far away, it was storming, wind blowing, the sound of thunder cracking like a whip. It was me and my brother, and we were lost in this far away land.

On the way to the hospital I could feel no pain, but I knew what he had done to me earlier that day. I had just flown in from Kansas City, and it was my first day in Vegas. My dad had already gone to work, and grandma was out back mowing the lawn, unable to hear the sounds around her.

A class clown attempted murder today.
A mother’s little boy,
a child’s best friend,
a teacher’s beloved terror,
stood over the monster who raised his freckly faced son
like the animal he’d become,
clutching a knife.

Before time was invented, there was a city. Half of the city was as light as day, and the other half was as dark as night.

He woke up shivering, the cold hard floor having been his bed for the night. His brain throbbed as he pushed himself up, making it hard to remember what last happened. He held his head in his hands as he thought it over until an eerie sob bounced off the walls.

It was raining outside, and our weary Traveler was on a gravel road, walking. With a large sack slung over his shoulder, he crept along at quite a slow pace, monotonously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He had no cloak, and so he was drenched in the cold rain.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there were two kingdoms. The Thintassia Kingdom was led by King Blue Man, and all of the people tried to be like King Blue Man and eat as little as possible. “Skinny is beautiful, skinny is beautiful,” the King would exclaim; the crowd would go wild.