This is the room where we tell stories about the future. It is curved, spacious, and filled with light. The deep stone window frames have no glass, allowing a cool breeze to blow in from the garden. The distant sound of a waterfall can be heard under occasional bursts of…

As I have been playing with the idea of writing a time travel story, several ideas have occurred to me. Some of these ‘ideas’ I don’t remember anymore. I should have written them all down, but I always imagine any idea worth developing will be memorable. As a result, I…

And I was off, pedaling madly on a dusty dirt road, my disheveled ponytail damp with sweat. Messy bun. Ball of keratin stress. I winced in pain, my thumbs bleeding, brandishing shredded, gnawed-on hangnails. Though usually self-conscious, wincing at the very thought of hurting myself, I paid no heed to…

In a late spring rain, the monk made his way along the covered stone path. Glancing out toward the garden where lay brothers were setting out new plants, undeterred by the weather, he gave a sigh and sat down on a bench to rest. By all accounts, his journey was…

If you knew Raymond, you’d think a bookstore would be the perfect place for him to meet a woman. Ideally, a nerdy pretty woman in a whimsical hat sipping a cappuccino by the window while a local poet reads something clever over the sound of acoustic guitar. Maybe the whimsical…

Finn snorted his disapproval through a nose eternally out of joint. He’d seen better rainbows tattooed on the forearms of dead sailors. The mural covering the old cinderblock wall appeared as if it had been applied by a couple of eight year olds on a dare. The word “Libertad!” highlighted…

Jimmy Brandt loved the first fold. He knew from that seam if it was going to drift left or fly straight. And the first step, always, always, always, was right down the middle. Creasing the sheet of clean paper lengthwise. Carefully aligning the corners of the sheet before using his…

WAR, PETER AND OTHER THINGS.  SEPTEMBER, 1945 During the war, Peter had incurred the most gruel of fatal attacks: a seven-bullet and bomb rupture on his left leg. He had been sent home and had the leg amputated.  A week after the surgery, his wife, Anna, had lost the fight…

Katsu’s airy house was roughly sealed against the night winds. Bundles of cedar needles were pushed into wall cracks and layers of rice mats strewn along a raised wooden floor. The breezes sought crannies and loose shingles anyway, as the valley whistled with restless spirits looking for a place to…