Author: Tom Darby

When the aliens landed in my backyard, I was midway through a nap on the sunny patch by the window. The sudden green glow pouring through my cat door was not exactly ideal.

Neither was the saucer the size of a kiddie pool hovering over my begonias. “Great,” I thought, flicking my tail. “Another Tuesday ruined.”

A beam of light swept across the yard like it was searching for a lost wallet. It finally landed on me, and a metallic voice boomed from the ship. “Are you the leader of this… uh, territory?”

I stretched, nonchalant. “Not me,” I said, lazily pointing a paw at the doghouse. “He’s in charge.”

The beam redirected to the mutt, who was snoring loudly. A moment later, the dog woke up, saw the light, and the genius assumed it was snack time. Tongue hanging out and tail wagging like a ceiling fan, he floated into the spaceship without a second thought.

“Good luck!” I called after him, curling back into my nap spot. I figured I’d never see the lophead again.

Three days later, the saucer was back. They lowered the dog onto the lawn. It had that smug look–the one after managing to eat something forbidden–like an alien equivalent of garbage.

The ship’s voice spoke, sounding exhausted. “You’re not worth conquering. And please… keep him away from the control panels.”

The saucer zipped off into the night sky, leaving me with a slightly gassy mutt and an unexpected delivery problem. Whatever the dog told them spooked the whole galaxy.

Now, the State Department sends us crates of milk bones every Friday—”For planetary security,” they say.

I let the dog think he’s a hero, and as long as he keeps his intergalactic connections to himself, I’m okay with it.

Plus, I get first dibs on the boxes. Who knew humans made bacon-flavored ones?

I spent the night in the hills east of home, an exile under the sky where the landscape is disfigured and ancient and the air thick, with the weight of forgotten histories.

It felt like I had wandered into the past, away from the hum of modern life, where my only companions were the ghosts of those who came before. I found a series of petroglyphs etched into the stone, whispers from those lost to time, and an ancient hovel that offered shelter.

I made it my refuge for the night. As the sun set, I built a small fire, the flickering light a fragile comfort against the encroaching darkness.

Dinner was sparse—a can of beans and some instant coffee. The flavors mingled with the smoke and the chill of the night. I ate slowly, savoring each bite as if it were a feast.

The solitude, punctuated by the crackling of the fire and the distant, eerie howls of the wind, was my only companion. Each sound amplified the vast emptiness around me, making the Nevada night feel even darker.

As I sat there, staring into the dancing flames, I felt the weight of the silence pressing down on me, a reminder of the isolation and the fragile existence I clung to in this barren landscape. I could not help but think, Is this what life has come to? A solitary figure clinging to the edge of the world, seeking meaning in the barren landscape of Nevada. The firelight cast long shadows, and I imagined them as the remnants of a life I once knew, now distorted and unreachable.

I was awakened at dawn by the sound of a lone longhorn, its call a haunting echo through the still air. The sun, just beginning to rise, cast a pale light across the rugged terrain.

I cooked the same meager fare for breakfast as the night before—beans and coffee. The taste was no different, but it carried a strange, bitter clarity in the light of the day.

As I sat there, cradling the warm tin between my hands, I let my mind drift into a waking dream. What if this was all that was left?

A world stripped bare by war and tyranny, leaving only a few of us to wander through its ruins. I imagined myself as one of the last survivors, a relic of a time when freedom was a given, not a distant memory.

The petroglyphs became a code to decipher, the hovel a last bastion of safety in a land of shadows.

In the barren expanse, my reality blurred with imagination. The boundaries between past and present, fact and fiction, dissolved like the morning mist.

Each moment was proof of resilience, the quiet strength required to endure when everything else had fallen away. The loneliness was palpable, a constant companion in the emptiness of the Nevada hills.

As I packed my belongings and prepared to leave, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was leaving part of myself behind, a ghost among the stones and whispers. The road back was long and unmarked, the silence broken only by the crunch of gravel beneath my boots.

As the hovel disappeared behind me, I glanced back, feeling the weight of its desolation. I knew I would return, drawn by the solitude and the echoes of a world that once was.

But for now, I walked on, one foot in front of the other, chasing the promise of another sunrise.

Missy had always thought she understood her father-in-law. Burdick was a straightforward man–brusque, stubborn, and unfiltered.

He didn’t say things. He threw them into the air, daring someone to catch them.

Tonight, though, something about his tone felt different.

“You think you’ve got a dirty mind?” Burdick said, his eyes glinting over the rim of his glass. The faint smell of whiskey curled between them like smoke from an extinguished fire. “Not as dirty as mine.”

Missy arched an eyebrow. “Wanna bet?”

She wasn’t sure why she’d said it—perhaps it was the challenge in his voice, the audacity of it. Maybe it was the simmering resentment she’d carried since her husband, Darren, had started staying later and later at the office, leaving her to navigate dinners and holidays with his father as her only company. Or perhaps it was just the whiskey in her glass, the warmth that blunted the edges of her better judgment.

“Yeah?” Burdick leaned forward, his grin wolfish. “You ever thought about it?”

Her heart skittered against her ribs. “About what?”

“You and me.”

Missy laughed—a brittle sound that broke too quickly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

But her face betrayed her. A blush rose like a tide, unstoppable and all-consuming, flooding her cheeks with heat.

She looked away, her pulse hammering in her ears. She felt trapped in the silence that followed, the weight of her unspoken thoughts pressing against her chest.

“So maybe you have thought about it.” Burdick’s voice softened, but there was no mistaking the undertone of satisfaction.

Missy didn’t respond. She couldn’t.

Instead, she stood, her chair scraping against the floor, and began collecting the plates from the table. Her hand trembled as she reached for Burdick’s empty glass, but his hand covered hers just as she was about to take it.

“Missy,” he said quietly, his voice pulling her gaze back to him.

She met his eyes and saw something unexpected—vulnerability, even regret. The challenge had vanished, replaced by something softer, more human.

It was the first time she’d wondered if Burdick’s provocations were armor, a way to shield himself from the loneliness that had settled into his life like a second skin.

Missy pulled her hand free. “You’re right,” she said, her voice steady. “We don’t.”

And then she left the room.

Later that night, lying alone in the bed she once shared with Darren, she stared at the ceiling and replayed the moment. There was something achingly familiar in Burdick’s eyes—something reflecting her desire to feel seen and wanted. But it didn’t make it right.

Sometimes, Missy thought, the lines we don’t cross are the ones that save us.

Nevada’s always been a place for folks who like their odds as wild as their whiskey—and I’ll tell you, they’ve kept it that way since before they even had the state line drawn. Back in ’62, when it was just a dust-swept territory and hadn’t quite set its sights on statehood, you’d think there was something in the water—or maybe the dust—that made everyone around Virginia City a born gambler. And since casinos hadn’t yet staked their claim in the sagebrush, folks would wager on anything that moved and plenty of things that didn’t.

Now, on a Saturday just as bright as gold, a perfectly routine keg delivery was twisted into a legendary showdown that’s still talked about with all the reverence of a church sermon and all the dignity of a barroom brawl. Leo Hechinger was a man you couldn’t miss—built like a barrow with legs and an accent so thick it practically had elbows.

He had a habit every May of throwing a keg party up on his deck on B Street, inviting his mining buddies to toss in their half-dimes to cover “expenses.” A fine tradition, you might say, where Leo and the boys would toast the end of winter with such vigor winter would stay down.

So, there they were, sunshine beaming, spirits bubbling, all leaning against fences and posts, waiting for that keg. And sure enough, along it came, hauled in by a gangly kid, maybe sixteen and as sturdy as a scarecrow after a bad windstorm.

That boy sized up the keg, took a deep breath, and leaned over to pull it out of the wagon like he was trying to haul a tree trunk from a creekbed. The crowd watched him, spellbound, like they were seeing a giraffe tiptoe or a mule walk backward.

And sure as shooting, the bets started flying—could the kid even get the keg to budge, or would he end up wrestling it like a calf to the ground? After much huffing and grunting, physics won, and that keg toppled out of the wagon with a mighty thud, much to the delight of half the crowd and the wallet-ache of the other.

Just then, Leo strolled over, patted the kid on the shoulder like a proud uncle, and, with a wink at the crowd, hoisted the keg onto his shoulder as if it were a sack of potatoes. He strutted it right up his deck steps.

Someone in the crowd—likely three pints in—hollered, “Leo! Betcha could carry that keg clear up to the summit of Sun Mountain!”

You have to understand that Leo was a man who’d sooner skip supper than back down from a dare, especially one that involved money. He set the keg down, squared his shoulders to the crowd, and said, “Well, I can’t say if I could or if I couldn’t—but I’d be willing to find out.”

At that, the crowd buzzed to life like a stirred-up beehive, and in no time, money was changing hands faster than poker chips at a flush. People were pouring in from as far as Hangtown to see if Leo Hechinger, all five-foot-eight of him, could carry that keg over a thousand feet to the top of Sun Mountain. They picked two men to serve as his escort, one from each side, to be sure he either made it up or rolled back down—no halfway bets allowed.

Come the following Saturday, and there was Leo, all 145 pounds of him, squaring off with a keg that weighed close to 100. He gave it a good swing over his shoulder and started up that mountain with the crowd cheering, hooting, and hollering him on every step.

If you’ve ever seen a bear try to dance, you’ve got a fair picture of what Leo looked like lugging that keg. He shifted it to his hip, hauled it on his back, then over one shoulder, in whatever way he could manage, but he kept moving.

Curse by curse, Leo climbed. And sure enough, by sheer grit and maybe the prospect of a good payout, he got that keg to the summit without letting it hit the dirt. People were floored—it was about the most ridiculous thing they’d ever seen, yet they were grinning as proud as if they’d made the climb themselves.

But here’s the kicker–Leo already knew he could make it to the top. He’d done it once before in the dead of night to see if he could.

It was a dark and stormy night in the small town of Virginia City. The wind howled through the trees, and the moon cast eerie shadows on the ground. The townsfolk were on edge following rumors of a werewolf lurking in the woods.

Denny, the local handyman, was heading home from a late-night job, having heard the stories but did not believe in such nonsense. Further down the deserted street, he heard a low growl from the bushes.

“Who’s there?” Denny called out, his voice trembling slightly. The growl grew louder, and he saw glowing eyes staring at him from the darkness.

Denny’s heart raced as he fumbled for his flashlight. He shone the beam into the bushes, and the creature stepped into the light. It was furry and had a menacing look on its face.

“Is that…the werewolf?” Denny muttered to himself.

The creature let go with a menacing howl, and Denny stepped back, his mind racing with fear.

He turned and ran, his footsteps echoing through the empty streets. He burst into the local saloon, where a few townsfolk gathered.

“There’s a werewolf outside!” Denny shouted, his eyes wide with terror.

The townsfolk exchanged nervous glances.

Old Lady Jenkins, who was known for her tall tales, spoke up. “I told you all! The werewolf is real!”

Sheriff Mike, a no-nonsense man with a thick mustache, stood up. “Alright, everyone, stay calm. Let’s go check it out.”

The group cautiously moved outside, armed with flashlights and makeshift weapons. They followed Denny to the spot where he had seen the creature.

“There it is!” Denny pointed, his hand shaking. The creature was still there, its eyes glowing in the darkness.

Sheriff Mike stepped forward, his flashlight trained on the creature. As he got closer, he let out a hearty laugh.

“Denny, that’s no werewolf. That’s a chihuahua!”

Then Mrs. Thompson appeared from around the corner. “Oh, there you are, Mr. Snuggles! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

JL might’ve been the walrus,
but me,
I’m the groundhog.
same damn day,
every damn time,
waking to the grind of a clock
that doesn’t care I’m tired.

the weather moves,
but I don’t.
months slap the calendar,
but it’s all the same—
cigarettes and cracked mugs,
shadows stretched thin
over yesterday’s junk.

the grave’s outback,
dirt piled neat,
quiet,
patient.
one day, I’ll skip the show,
leave my shadow behind,
and the earth will
swallow me whole,
like it always meant to.

On my way back to the house, I spotted three pickups lined up haphazard-like along the side of the road, with three men hopping around trying to round up a little black heifer with a white blaze smack between her eyes. It wasn’t hard to see they were getting nowhere—one man had his arms flailing, another bent over wheezing, and the last one just stood there, looking like he’d rather be at home in front of his television.

None of them had a rope, but I did. So I pulled over, pulled out my catch rope, hopped the barbed wire, and ambled over to the pair gasping for air like fish on dry land.

“What’s all this fuss?” I asked, eyeing the heifer, who was as fed up as I was by then.

The oldest fella, after hauling in half a lungful of air, managed to tell me the story, wheezing between words: he’d seen the cow grab hold of a plastic political sign—“chomping on it,” as he said—before she looked like she was trying to swallow the thing whole. That’s when she started to choke, and they’d all jumped into the ring to help, each less successful than the last.

That poor heifer was spooked to death by their antics.

Well, that heifer wasn’t likely to let any of those boys get within ten feet, let alone close enough to do her any good. So I swung my noose loose, calm, and slow and eased toward her with the rope twirling gently above my head. I walked right up within spitting distance and—when I was sure I had her attention—heaved my loop over her neck.

Sure enough, that stopped her in her tracks. Now I could see the blue and white corner of something poking out from her mouth.

Using a touch of patience and some slow talking, I worked my way up the rope, reached in, and pulled out the slobbery, mangled piece of plastic before setting her loose. The poor critter gave a grateful snort and trotted off, glad to be rid of the whole thing. I shook the loop from around her neck, picked up the sign, and turned back to the three men, who were still trying to round up enough breath to thank me.

I held up the sign for them to see. It read Harris/Walz as if the heifer knew what she thought of the whole business.

a monkey stashes bananas like gold bars,
the others claw at the dirt,
ribcages poking out like scaffolding,
and the scientists come in,
clipboards and lab coats,
muttering about abnormalities,
something gone wrong in the wiring,
maybe a misfire in the brain.

but take a human who does the same,
who locks away bread while the masses eat dust,
and we slap their face on a magazine.
visionary, we call them.
genius.
we write books about how they did it
sell courses teaching others to do the same.

funny thing, though—
you put the monkey in a suit,
teach it to talk,
and it’s giving a TED Talk
on maximizing returns.

the world’s a zoo,
only us animals don’t know it.

Paul had seen a lot, from college pranks and avant-garde performances to his aunt Edith attempting a bungee jump, but nothing had prepared him for this.

It all began when his girlfriend, Fiona, invited him to her art show, “Perspectives on the Mundane: A Study of the Unseen.”

Martin, who had been dating Fiona for six months, knew she had a flair for the dramatic. She was a talented painter and sculptor with a wild streak fueled by her bipolar highs.

One week, she’d spend hours delicately painting flowers. The next, she’d propose replacing their coffee table with a pile of bricks she’d “found in the spirit of chaos.”

In the packed gallery, Fiona was in her element, wearing what appeared to be a formal black gown. The crowd gasped and whispered as she mingled, her mischievous smile hinting at something more.

“Wait for it,” she whispered to Paul, sipping champagne.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Fiona made her way to the center of the room, with her back to the crowd. Then, with dramatic flair, she pulled a cord, and the bottom half of her gown fell away, revealing a perfectly circular hole that framed her bare backside like it was a prized painting in the Louvre.

But this was no ordinary mooning. On Fiona’s exposed derrière was an expertly painted face–complete with glittering blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and lips that seemed a little too lifelike.

As Fiona shifted her weight, the face came alive, winking and puckering, sending the crowd into hysterics.

“Oh my God,” Paul whispered, frozen. “It’s… talking.”

He wasn’t wrong. Fiona had positioned herself near a speaker playing a recording of whimsical phrases like, “Why so serious?” and “Do I have something on my face?” timed perfectly to her movements.

The pièce de résistance came when one of her collaborators—dressed as an old prospector—strolled up and, with a theatrical bow, placed a lit cigarette between the two cheeks. Now, the painted face appeared to be smoking.

Martin watched in equal parts horror and awe as people howled with laughter. A few prudish attendees fled the room while others filmed on their phones, murmuring, “Is this art? Is it genius?”

“Fiona!” Paul hissed, grabbing her arm. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” she said, grinning. “I’m redefining art!”

“You’re redefining embarrassment!”

She waved him off. “Oh, lighten up, Paul. Art should provoke, inspire, and maybe make people a little uncomfortable.”

“A little uncomfortable? You’re a walking Picasso fart joke!”

She smirked. “Exactly. I call it ‘The Butt of All Fears.’”

The show became the talk of the town, with critics split between declaring it groundbreaking or a cry for help. Fiona was unapologetic, basking in her newfound fame.

As for Paul, he tried to explain the event to his mother over tea but couldn’t get past the part where the face started smoking. Ultimately, he realized Fiona wasn’t just a woman—but a force of nature.

Although he wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to dating a living art installation, one thing was clear: life with Fiona would never be boring.

There’s a good many things a cowpoke don’t volunteer to a new hand on the ranch, and that’s just how it was out at the old K-R. I’d signed on to help track down cattle in the hills east of the main spread, but you can bet there was more to it than cattle work.

Now, hindsight’s got a way of nudging a fella into makin’ him look back, so I should’ve seen right through the “hospitality” of a couple of the K-R’s old-timers. They offered to wrangle up a horse for me, an “old, gentle one,” with his reins dropped and ground tied, ready to follow. But I was fresh, too polite, and just green enough to tip my hat and thank ’em for their trouble, none the wiser to the bit of hell that’d be rolling my way soon enough.

They handed me an old sorrel with a proud Roman Nose—weathered enough to look like he’d been through more than a few sunrises, and maybe that’s why I trusted it. But right out the gate, that horse showed me he had notions about work, and they weren’t friendly ones.

First, he acted like he didn’t know what “move” meant; jus’ stubborned-up when I asked him to go. I had to huff and haul to get him to pick his way through a jumble of rocks and a patch of scrub pines like I was the one supposed to do the work.

Then, he gets a tickle for mischief and gives me a couple of crow-hops, just testing if I knew how to hold on. When that didn’t shake me, he tries a bolder trick—headed full steam toward a low-slung branch, hoping to knock me clear out of my saddle.

I didn’t come loose, though. And after a few hours of games, I reckon I started to sympathize. Maybe, he jus’ wasn’t too keen on me, and I didn’t know the first thing about the old cayuse either. So I dismount, take a bit of pity on the old boy, and let him breathe while we walk around, me talking low and soft, trying to make us pals.

By the time the sun was overhead, I figured we might’ve found some understanding. I was just about to climb back up and see if maybe he’d let go of his grudge. So, reins in the dirt, I turn to take care of business, trying to keep everything calm and routine.

Next thing I hear is a loud snicker. Before I even turn around, the critter bolts. One mighty jump backward, a quick spin, and off he goes, tail high and legs pumping like he’d been sprung from a trap, headed downhill and back to the ranch without a second thought, leaving me high, dry, and in the altogether.

I trailed him down six miles of trail, boots rubbing and grit in my teeth, all the way to the main spread. Sure enough, the fellas were there, hats tipped back and grinning wide, waiting to see the walk of shame they’d figured on.

Well, fool me once.