The once famous monster had fallen on hard times. He lost his home one evening after setting fire to it while in a rage.

Now homeless and drinking too much, he wandered the streets at night, sleeping in a garbage bin during the day. After two years of this, he decided it was time to pull himself up by his boot straps and find a job.

Happy with his decision, he unthinkingly stepped onto the busy street without looking first. A passing bus struck him and that’s how he came to be known as “Frankenstain.”

Life can be so cruel.

Sharon looked up from her book, “What would happen if a werewolf and a human were to mate?”

Tyler fluffed his pillow and laid his head back on it, “What an odd question…why, did something…?”

“No, nothing happened. I’m simply being curious,” Sharon answered.

“The child could be a werewolf, a wolf or a mutt,” Tyler said.

“Perhaps a pit-bull?” Sharon interrupted questioningly.

“No, that’s only possible with Jeremy Renner,” Tyler responded.

“I do hope so,” Sharon smiled as she returned to her book.

Tyler didn’t want to think of the implication as he rolled over to face the wall.

“Coyote told me how to find the path.”
A spiteful sun singes his skin.
“That bush looks like a jack rabbit.”
The high desert oozes its heated hostility.
“I should have passed the station by now.”
A rock stained with bird-shit cries out:
“Turn back!”
He has circled back upon his-self.
“Is that the sound of moving water?”
He turns to face that burning sun.
“Coyote told me how to find the path.”
He cocks his gun as Coyote waits.

Monday morning, beginning of the work week as I wheeled into the parking structure next to the newspaper, where I work. As usual, with satchel hanging from my left shoulder, I walked lost in thought towards the entrance I’d jus’ passed through.

Her low, square heels made a soft tap, tap, tap as she walked behind me. I knew from the sound that she’d overtake me before I rounded the corner.

As she began to pass me, I felt a sudden sting. She had poked me with a needle in my leg led, below my butt-cheek.

“Hey!” I shouted.

She did not look back at me as I stopped to rub the spot from where the pain emanated. I figured that I could distinguish the elderly woman from other women because of the bright red hat she wore.

Continuing my path towards the office, I picked up my pace, determined to call the police as soon as I made it to my desk. As I rounded the corner I was met with a sea of red-hatted women.

The sight made my head spin wildly, my heart race uncontrollably and then growing sweaty and clammy, my throat fill with bloody vomit.

Rachel and I were on her living room couch, half-naked when my cellphone rang. I reached over and tapped ‘dismiss,’ sending the call to voicemail.

Curious, Rachael asked, “Who was that?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I replied as I slipped my hand back inside her panties.

Then my phone started chirping again, demanding my attention. This time I decided to answer it.

“Who is this?” I demanded, not recognizing the number.

“Rachael’s dad,” a voice on the other end announced.

“Why are you calling me?” I asked in astonishment.

“To tell you to use your tongue and not your finger. She responds better to that.”

Before I could say respond, the line went dead.

“Well,” Rachel asked, “Who was that?”

“Your father,” I answered.

“Can’t be! My father’s been dead since I was seven.”

watching clouds go by
listening to the crows laugh
my how they gossip

in a moment of self-awareness
he realizes he is too adversarial
too much politics in his universe
all consuming as he gets fired up
yelling at friends mistaken for tv

Last night I woke up to
My wife stroking my hair,
Singing a lullaby to me.
Strangely, I enjoyed it.
Such a stressful week.
But then I realized…
I do not have a wife,
Nor do I have a house.

She was sitting in the hospital’s Chapel.

“May I?” the young man asked.

“Sure.”

“Oscar,” he said, as he held his hand out.

“Janet.”

“Praying for someone?”

“My mom. She’s in surgery – heart transplant. What are you here for?”

“I’m an organ donor.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, got a call this morning that I’m a match.”

“Aren’t you scared you could die on the operating table?”

“Not any more,” he returned.

“Janet, I’ve got good news about your mom,” the nurse said, poking her head through the doorway. “Thanks to an organ donor, she’s gonna be okay.”

Janet turned; Oscar was gone.

As a writer, I’m always looking for that next story – the one where art imitates life. It doesn’t come around often and the reverse is even less frequent.

Such was not the case last night as my wife and I lay in bed…

To begin with, I am terrified of spiders. I’ve had a couple of incidents that have left me scarred with regard to those certain creepy-crawlies.

There happened to be a rather large spider on the wall and I pointed it out to her. She got up and with tissue in hand, and much to my relief, dispatched the thing post-haste.

Crawling back in bed, she picked up the book she’s reading titled, ‘The Friend Zone,’ by Abby Jimenez. No sooner had she settled in, picked up where she’d left off, then she began laughing.

“What?” I asked, thinking she was laughing at my silliness.

“Listen,” she answered as she began to read aloud from Chapter Nine:

She stood in the hall in her curlers, wringing her hands, with Stuntman Mike at her feet looking up at me. I thought for a second she’d seen someone in the yard and had come to tell me.

“What?” I asked.

“Josh? Can you come to my room?”

My wolfish grin broke some of the tension of her face.

“Oh, stop. There’s a spider. I need you to kill it. Please. Before it disappears and I have to burn my whole house down.”

I laughed. “Should I get my gun or…?”

She bounced nervously. “Josh, I’m serious. I hate them. Please help me.”

I pulled a few tissues from the box on my nightstand.”

Anyone who knows me, knows that I once in complete panic, used an M-15, on full-auto, to kill a Banana Spider that I’d knocked from my face after I fell asleep. While that was no laughing matter, my wife and I had a good laugh at the obvious parallels between what had jus’ happened and the storyline in her book.