There was once a man named Ray who fancied himself something of a philosopher. Not the robe-wearing, mountain-meditating type, but the kind who delivered his wisdom while leaning on a grocery cart in the bottled water aisle. It started one August afternoon when the heat index was roughly equal to the national debt. Ray stood…

Well now, listen here, you clever contraption of wires and wit, what I want is plain enough, though it’ll sound a sight fancier once you’ve had your way with it. Take whatever blame-fool sentence I toss your direction (or maybe this here very plea of mine, if that’s the article in question), and rework it…

Ken sat at his computer, hacking away at another meaningless article. He should’ve been out in the yard, cutting away the dead hosta, trimming the brittle stalks before frost came and finished them off. But then it had always been like this. He ignored everything but the writing. His wife, his children, his hygiene, their…

The news came over the dusty bar TV like a joke told by a drunk priest, something about the government shutting down again and the national debt hitting thirty-eight trillion dollars. The bartender, a former accountant named Lorna, just snorted and kept polishing a glass that had been clean three swipes ago. “Thirty-eight trillion,” she…

Allen leaned back on the couch, the one the shrink said was “therapeutic gray.” It looked like something out of a waiting room where hope went to die. The doctor, Dr. Kessler, sat across from him, legal pad perched on his knee, eyes shining as if he were waiting for a confession that would make…

Often, Buddy will lie beside me, either in the big chair or on the bed, and dream. I can’t help but wonder what it is he dreams about, and sometimes I think it’s about pirates and treasure. And so, it all began at the Bark & Barrel Inn, a cozy little place run by a…

They called it a hearing, which is the sort of respectable language a civilized government uses when it plans to swallow you. I know the difference between a hearing and an execution, like the difference between a hardback and a paperback. One has a spine you can trust, and the other will fall apart the…

As a Corpsman, I was used to being out front. That’s not where Corpsmen are supposed to be, mind you, we’re supposed to hang back a bit, stay out of the line of fire, and be ready to patch up the guys who charge ahead. But when you train with Marines, things have a way…

I dropped the reins and allowed the horse to have her head. She seemed tired, and to be honest, so was I. The sun was high over the Sierra foothills, that soft gold light spilling across the sage and scrub like honey. I figured we both deserved a breather. Now, I’ve always believed horses are…

I always knew the laundry room was plotting against me. You don’t grow up sorting whites from colors every Tuesday for twenty-odd years without noticing patterns, and then the day one breaks, you realize civilization was always one dryer load away from collapse. That day started like any other in my quiet corner of suburbia:…