The sky began as a placid blue, but Buddy noticed the subtle change in the wind, the birds falling silent, the way the humans kept glancing upward. His security senses were tingling. Something was coming. “Max, report to the observation post immediately,” Buddy commanded, leading the younger golden retriever to the living room window. “We…

Yesterday, while cleaning out old files from an ancient external hard drive, I came across a news article I wrote in 2005 about the Kandahar Giant. The article comes after an interview with an alleged pilot who claimed to have flown the creature out of Afghanistan to the U.S.My editor, Angela Mann, at the Sparks…

The afternoon had that washed-out Nevada brightness that makes everything look slightly guilty of something. The kind of light that exposes peeling paint, tired lawns, and the philosophical question of why anyone still checks physical mail in the age of electronic everything. I was standing out front, doing what people in small towns do when…

Last night, I made one of the silliest mistakes of my life. I went to bed at five o’clock in the evening. Now, a fellow who goes to bed at that hour is either eight years old, ninety-eight years old, or carrying the sort of exhaustion that can flatten a horse. I was operating under…

The coffee in my mug had gone cold. The condensation had left a ring on the coaster, an imperfect, irregular, small map of nowhere. I studied it with the seriousness a man usually reserves for tax forms or jury duty notices. It struck me that most of life is like staring at little rings like…

There comes a time in every man’s life when he discovers that his body has joined the opposition. For some, it is the knees, and for others, it is the back. In my case, the rebellion began in my right big toe, which is a body part I had never given much thought to. It…

The ground behind our house took to wriggling like a bookworm with ambition, and then, finding its legs, ran like a centipede late for supper. The whole place began to shake with a purpose that suggested it had long been considering the matter. Mary, who had been peaceably laying out tomorrow’s respectability, froze and demanded…

By the time I wandered into Wild River Grille, the whole country had apparently become trapped inside Colin Kaepernick’s left kneecap. Every television in America glowed with panels of furious experts discussing the man’s new memoir as though it were the Dead Sea Scrolls wrapped in a Nike towel. Sports radio hosts barked like Pentecostal…

There are pieces of news that arrive politely. They knock on the door, remove their hat, and ease themselves into the conversation. Then other pieces of news that kick the door off its hinges, stomp mud across the hardwood floor, and punch a man square in the soul. The news that Tim Johnson has died…

I have lately taken to falling with a degree of skill that suggests practice, though I assure you it was acquired the hard way. My most recent performance resulted in a torn calf muscle, a leg painted in respectable shades of purple, and a dignity not seen since. The doctor examined me with the sort…