Horror

War stories? Now, a man like me is full of them, and some that can’t be told until I’ve had a pint. You’ve stood me three and so I’ll tell the best o’ them. Not that you’d be able to write it down and publish it. Some things are not ‘fit for print,’ you know.

PHOTO KIOSK My parents will retire soon, their eyes too fuzzy, their hands too shaky to fill prescriptions, and this crusty old pharmacy will be my cross to bear. And…

She smelled her first. Heavy musk perfume, sweat, stale lavender and smoke. Florence ordered her nose to remain unwrinkled and glanced around the dim tea room, balancing her tray. The…

My work demands the completion of many unpleasant tasks, but the most unpleasant are these quarterly visits to my grandfather. As the one who’d gotten him committed to the institution,…

1.       The Black Hole of Comedy I made my way down the dank, filthy stairs, into the darkness where jokes go after they’ve died. I descended into Ha-Ha Hell, like…

People are Strange This is the end for my dad, but he’s died before, so maybe I’m wrong. I know it’s a cliché, but deathbed regret is a real thing.…

                             A POX ON BOTH OUR HOUSES Ah, syphilis—so sweet, so soft and sibilant, the most beautiful word in the English language. I sing the infectious tune, the bacterial…

Journal Entry #1 There is more hair in the sink. There is always more hair in the sink. And in the shower. And in the drain. And in my hands.…

Sunlight streamed through the westward windows at a slant, glinting off the twenty desks arranged in standard grid formation. That sunlight seemed almost heavenly to Jackie Potter as she sat…

Note: I met Olga Taran many years ago by a strange and happy series of coincidences. An interest in Descartes led me to study geometry. Since my education had been…