He saw the pair exit the dark-colored sedan as he walked across the parking lot. They separated, the smaller of the two heading for the far door of the hardware mega-store and the other following behind him. He was there to buy a kit to fix a broken shower hand, chalk, and a new caulking…

My Cousin Elmo says, “Soon we’ll have the COVID-19 Manero variant. It will give you a fever only on Saturday nights.”

The second-longest corridor in the VA hospital led to the mental health clinic. For Tom, it had always felt like a walk of shame. This time he stopped dead in his tracks as he came around the corner. On his right was a long line of black and white photographs of happy, smiling female veterans.…

A friend of mine, Valery Lyman, is on assignment and shared some prose that moved me to write a haiku and create this haibun. the traveling nurse must smoke, drink, tell bad jokes no mask is required this hotel is full of traveling nurses. they drink heavily at night and smoke cigarettes. ever so human…

The red sandstone rested nowhere near a hillside or rocks of the same material. Sam picked it up and looked it over. The surface had a petroglyph of the humped back flute player, Kokopelli, in black and not the usual dark red pigment. Sam slipped it in his pack. Once home, he placed it on…

My Cousin Elmo says, “Don’t let anyone take your temperature by pointing that thing at your forehead. It erases your memory. I went to the grocery store for beer and came home with tampons.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “Can a person get drunk on Fire Ball? Asking for a friend.”

U.S. citizens left behind in Afghanistan, so let’s hold a press conference on why we need a COVID-19 booster shot.

“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia and Confession of Nat Turner. James Froude, an English historian, and novelist gave a different twist: “Toleration is a good…

Since I’ve no family on Mars, been unable to befriend anyone, and bored inside my isolation chamber, I have begun writing. A week into isolation and a week to go. It solves two things, the return of “space sickness,” this time akin to getting one’s balance back after being at sea for too long. The…