Hinterland Is Real
They say seeing is believing. I didn’t know what that meant until that night. I was coming home late, later than I should, and I knew I was going to catch heck. Momma didn’t even pretend to be patient when me or my sister wasn’t
Deadly Mist
The mist crept closer, slithering across the boot prints she left behind on the soft, moist ground. She urged her legs to go faster over the uneven path. A leafless tree grabbed at the flying strands of her long silver hair as she ran past.
Path of the Dead
The path of a ghost is etched into the earth, hammered and chiseled by heeled boots, flat leather soles, and the barest of feet. I follow the prints up and over the rise. There is a man standing by the car, smartly dressed in black
Blue Like You
In the beginning of the world, there was a bird, small and ugly, waddling on the ground, unaware it had wings. It sang to the blue skies, voice soaring and dipping, longing and magic-infused in every note. This went on for days and then weeks
deal of the century
The rain stopped battering against the phone booth the second he hung up, as if a giant spigot turned off. It was sudden and silent and not at all what he expected from a crossroads deal. No devil drove up in a shiny Cadillac. No
Next door to happiness
They say Happiness lives in that house. Normally I don't believe nothing anyone tells me, but after walking by that door every day and staring at the sunshine color, I decide to grab an ounce of nerve and knock. I wait and sweat and fidget
Burn it Down
He’d never been a man of vision. He hadn’t been much of anything until the day lightning struck him. The smell of singed wires had stayed with him for months, long after he discovered the unnatural side effects of a billion volts of energy blasting
Old Friends
Ms. Royal had spent her entire life in this doorway—from the carpenter’s shop to the painter, onto the installer's truck, and then, here, next to Mr. Turquoise. Turq, he insisted she call him. She thought nicknames a little too common, vulgar even, so she called
Wings of Prophecy
She passes through the labyrinth of brick walls and bright markings. She speaks to no one, for she is alone with her mission. A black feather drifts across her path, carried by the breeze from vents blowing greasy smells. At the labyrinth’s heart is a
Choices
There’s a magic in them alleys. Where the moon fills with blood, and the margins of the city seep through cracks in the cement, opening the way for other things. How do I know? I’ve seen things; felt the whoosh of air from beating wings
No Regret
In his dreams, he revved and roared and smoked his tires on hot asphalt, jumping off the start line. He boomed through gritty, naked streets toward the finish line and white handkerchiefs waving from delicate hands. He dreamed because he could
Venture Onward in 2022!
At the beginning of every year, I pick a word that I want to subscribe to. An anchor word, a mantra to keep me on track, and keep me focused. This year I picked the word VENTURE. As in venture on, venture upward, and venture
Once upon a Phoenix street
The three sisters had grown tall and bored…of the streets and the ball of fire above them that burned the ends of their fine strands. They often complained to each other about the winds and blowing dust, for they had become quite vain after seeing
At the end of all things…
They looked out the window, twenty-two stories down to the empty streets. Big Foot poured a double shot of whiskey in two glasses. He took one for himself and handed the other glass to his good friend and fellow conspirator, Snuffleupagus, who, even though he
In the beginning…
Two sisters sat in their mother’s living room as the rain rat-tatted on the tin roof. The one with brown eyes scrolled endlessly through the app on her phone, looking at the fake she thought was real. The one with amber eyes stared out the window
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Here we are already rolling into the month of Love. February seemed to just show up out of the blue. Kind of like that unexpected old friend who showed up at your door with a suitcase in hand and said, "I'm here!" So Happy Valentine's Day! I
Lethal Amounts of Joy
The town officials have condemned and scheduled the building behind me for demolition. Authorities say that a group of rebels have been using the building for a lab for at least seventeen months. Apparently, the tenants had been manufacturing joy and giving it away for
Ice Cream Fairy
She hadn’t meant for the bridge to fall away under the hooves of the hero’s horse, or for the peasant girl to turn into a pumpkin instead of her chariot. I’m not an engineer, she’d said in her own defense. I’m a fairy. Sure, she
Little Green Men
It had been twenty-three years since Charlie last saw the old homestead. His mother had signed it all over to him years ago. It was a place he didn’t intend to see ever again. Let it rot, he said with finality. But yesterday the cops
Galactic Princess
“It strikes me as funny that no one thought I had the situation under control,” the Princess said. “It’s not like I didn’t have an outstanding track record of saving people, blowing up the bad guys, and generally being badass before the so-called kidnapping. Ha.
Word up in 2021
Ready or not, 2021 is here! I don't know about you, but I managed to find some downtime, eat too much food that was definitely not on a diet plan, and visit with family via video chat. December was also a month of finishing up projects
Shadows Anonymous
It happened at night, the separation. The wet snap and the gradual split and Lester’s body became thoughts and wind as he drifted out the window of the man’s loft. Lester woke miles away, alone and dark and long in the rising light of the
Beware of Dog
I tell myself that… they won’t know I didn’t find the character that pulled the entire story together until the end, because of course there had to be a Franciscan nun showing up at his door wait…not a nun, a black dragon that blows confetti out
Late Night TV
That old TV never did work, but that didn’t stop grandad from sitting out by the garage to stare at the thing for hours. It was my job to keep his glass of lemonade filled up while he was out there. He would hush me
Sing Me A Song, Bluebird
In the beginning of the world, there was a bird, small and ugly, waddling on the ground, unaware it had wings. It sang to the blue skies, voice soaring and dipping, longing and magic infused within every note. This went on for days and then
Life of a Shopping Cart
A shopping cart saved my life. Don’t look at me that way…I’m old, but I still got all my marbles. I’ve had this cart since 1978, when I had my first baby. We didn’t have the fancy strollers then and even if we did, I
Neighborhood Hangout
He was gone long enough that the sting should’ve eased. But it hadn’t. She saw him everywhere like he’d touched everything and branded it his before leaving. It started a few weeks back, her moving out pieces of furniture from the house. Carrying lamps
Alien Ride Along
You don’t need to believe in urban legends or myths, to make them true. Take the multiple UFO sightings in New Mexico. You’ve heard about them, maybe even seen them for yourself—the glowing disks or triangles of light. Speculations of alien spies have been around for
Guardian of Time
Some say the Guardians of Time created this door to drive men insane. But that’s a bunch of malarkey. This is a rumor spread by those who obsess about the past or the future, who want to alter an outcome in either way. They search
Throne of Judgement
You might think it strange, me sitting here, waiting for the sun to set, to watch the stars pop out one by one after I’ve just done what I’ve done. From up here, I see the house burn, flames like long tongues licking the sky. If
The Ghost of Beverly Hills
You wouldn’t know it, but this is her home, in the penthouse suite forever rented. Not her ghost, but the blond movie star in the flesh. Rumor and time had spun a fine yarn of depression and addiction into her narrative. How convenient, she thought.
Wishmaker
I sucked out the last of the slush from the bottom of my Freezie as I faced the genie. I couldn’t find his lamp, so I rubbed the gritty block wall just over his eyes—rubbing until my hands turned raw. I didn’t trust him, not
Stray Animal
me: Did you feed him? him: I didn’t. You told me never to do that, so I didn’t. me: How did he get here? him: I don’t know. Maybe he followed me home last night. me: He’s old and rusty and his hind end sags. He needs a doctor.
The Lazarus Syndrome
“You’ve had a most unusual experience, would you tell us about it?” asks the talk show host. “I heard about the Pearly Gates all my life. I had certain expectations, perhaps like most of you,” I look out at the studio audience, not for dramatic effect
Fire, Gods, And Pints
It was the time when day drinkers morphed into night drinkers. The noise in the bar multiplied with each drink poured. At least that’s how it seemed to me. I wore a scowl that normally scares people away. But one pint earlier, a tall, twiggy
Secret of the White Beast
The sun touched its fingers on the mountain tops as I found the cave. It was steamy and damp. The air fluttered with dust mites and flies. In the distance, I heard water running. In my mind, the cave would pulse with a thousand black
Alien Nightmare
The small alien clutched the ticket in its hand and danced from one limb to another as it waited in line next to its guardian. They had come early, long past feeding time, but neither seemed to notice the growing hunger in their guts. The
Live Show
The Fates, sisters, weavers, sat in the stiff theatre chairs they had complained about for decades. They were the sort who took comfort in stiff and creaking joints. The morning show was a doubleheader. Two lovers who found each other late in life. The one
Postcards From Heaven
Last week she received a small bundle of postcards postmarked from heaven. The date stamps were for the past seven years, each one dated on her birthday. The person who wrote them told her of the eternal choir practice that had resulted in honing their
Snapshots
It was hard for her to remember what it had looked like before the quake. Before the earth shook them around like a snow globe, and drywall crumbled, and waters rose and swelled over banks to flood streets, pushing cars and walls and people along
Poetry Stew
The secret is to let the words simmer in a broth of irony and truth, the butterfly said to me. Add a dash of laughter and a single teardrop. Sprinkle two parts empathy, one-part fantasy and three tablespoons of humor. Make sure this is well
Fire Keeper
Across the dry tundra, full of night and blackened suns, the wind stirs the dirt into two swirling devils, thirty feet between them. The girl tightens her grip on her fire staff. “There you are, dragon,” she whispers. Stars disappear behind a monstrous shape.
Life Imagined
Andre sat up on his bike seat in the back alley of his house and flicked the tassel he’d attached to his handlebar. The drink in his other hand warm and untouched. His friends George and Zane waited for him, drinks open and half drunk.
THE LION AND THE MOUSE
This is a story of a mighty lion who chased a tiny mouse—a slip of a rodent with little meat on his bones. But the lion who thinks much of himself, roars and pounces and shakes its golden mane more for theatrics than anything else.
Riding the Rails
Ghosts don’t walk unless they have to. A last resort kind of thing. The train, now that’s a luxury. I’ve ridden with beasts and humans, but only a handful of each can see my once handsome face and lank hair resembling ill-cut string. There are those
Home
Home. Where I shed my coat, my day, my tears. Where we said things we wanted to take back and sat in silence when there was too much to say. Where small feet pattered to the same six hiding places over and over again until none
Fall into Sky
They woke me up. I should have been scared, their beaks peck, pecking at my window while the other boys slept, dreamed and farted, but I wasn’t. I opened the window to two white birds with wings that seemed too big for their bodies. One
Viewmaster of the Future
“Fifty cents,” the kid says, holding out his scarred hands and smiling with blackened tiny teeth in a thin-lipped mouth.” He must have sensed my hesitation. “That’s a bargain, Mr. A turn of the focus ring and voila, your future, plain as the nose on
Desert Crossroads
Twenty miles from here is a crossroad with no name—just two dirt roads meeting like old friends in the middle of the desert. A place where tears, longings, and souls are bartered for heart’s desires. How do I know? My neighbor told me as much.
In the Blue of the Sky
I heard screams from the other end of Center Street as I pedaled my bike away from the flying black disks that had appeared over the city in the early hours of the morning. People crowded into streets, patios, and rooftop restaurants, filming and texting
Morning Skies
I wore pajamas and flipflops while drinking coffee from my Snoopy cup—never did pay much attention to what I looked like. A woman, hair bottle-bronzed, sat next to me on the bus stop bench. She had a sensible look, white tennis shoes with an A-line
Down the Cobblestone Road
People often asked where I get the inspiration for my stories. For those of you who know me personally, you might know that my inspiration comes from the photographs I take. Party of my creative process is making time to explore with my camera, looking
Survive
You hear voices. Whispered, slithering words that climb over each other as they crawl across dirt and dead grass to get to you. You can’t remember the last time you heard a human voice, but you know these aren’t human. These are the sounds of the
HIDE AND SEEK
It was the boys turn to seek. Where was his sister hiding? The boy smelled candy and ginger. From a distance, the ruin of a wall looked like stone and mortar, but as he crept closer, as the light hit its textured face, the boy saw
Chained
The chains rattled and clanged as they wrapped his arms and locked him down. They had left him there wearing the same peeled paint and weathered wood suit he always wore. He hung his lattice in shame. He never did know his crime, even to this day.
The Fool
I told the fool not to look at me straight on. Keep to the mirrors, to puddles, chrome bumpers or windows––I don’t want to see the red-veined whites of your eyes, I told the fool. But like all fools, he wasn’t the listening kind. It was the
Let Your Hair Down
Here’s the thing about Rapunzel, she was a DJ and lived on the second floor and truth be told, it wasn’t but a twenty-foot drop from her window to the street. She had cut her hair when she was eighteen and has rocked an indigo blue
Music of Starlight
The heart lies beside him, whole, pink and beating. Thump. Thump, the drumbeat of someone who knew how to make music or war. She picks it up and cracks it open on the nearest rock. Rumors and legends spread throughout the kingdom of unimaginable treasures found inside
Ten cents and a femur bone
The price of a call to the afterlife is ten cents and a femur bone. Just so you know, I don’t make them rules. But I can tell you how to bend them a little. Nowhere in the admissions guidelines does it say whose femur
What I Remember
the sun pouring like honey through our bedroom window drinking lukewarm coffee because I don't want to get up and not hear you breathe just to nuke it hot the red of the apple I had for lunch, the crunch of it when I bit in the white
just like you
"The sad thing is, we are just like you,” it said. “Only better. We don’t toil and slave for others. We just are. We dress better than you but wear no designer labels. We have no traffic jams or guns or old hurts. We just
Inspiration will strike you down
“Look, honey, making art you don’t like will make you sick.” She took a drag on her smoke. “You got any chalk on you?” “I don’t,” I say. “You should. Never know when inspiration will strike you down.” With one last puff on her cigarette,
Sky, land and water
Once, there was sky and land and water and nothing more. It was good. But sometimes good can be better. A seed was thrown to the wind. It was carried through sky, across land and fell to the water. It was pushed ashore by waves,
Ms. Eve
I don’t know about you, but for me, January seems like it should be part of the year before. It feels like a buffer month, one where you pull the blankets up, make a cocoon and stare into the fire, daydreaming about all the things
The Untold Version
What you don’t know is how Goldilocks got to the bear’s house in the first place. She was running, from her father’s silence and to her mother’s ghost––a shimmering figure who wore the face of her mother but had longer hair, slimmer hips, and black
Chariot of the Dead
They call it the Chariot. And if you’re wondering, it didn’t always look this––patinaed. Back in the day, I kept it spit-polished to a heavenly shine. The sleek body was black as a bottomless hole. And the chrome, it shone with the brilliance of a
In the Day…
In the day, he wore a robin’s egg, blue suit. He spiffed up and shined up and rolled smooth as a movie star down a red carpet. Street lights blinked a slow sexy rhythm for him, a green for three blocks tops, then red. A
Forever, Until it Isn’t
The day smelled of cut flowers and suntan lotion. The finned ’85 Chevy cut a fine line down the gravel road. Cans of Bud Light bounced off the ground and took flight once we got to the main road.
Freda the Dragon Slayer
Freda the Dragon Slayer pushed a screwdriver into the ignition. Her arthritic hand shook and ached as she twisted the handle. The old farm truck sputtered but started. Every day the same thing, Franko the truck would moan and complain but he always came alive. The
Ollie and Racheal
Ollie had found the truck on the side of the freeway. The ‘For Sale’ sign handwritten in the window. Five hundred or best offer, it said in bright blue marker. He called and made their best offer which wasn’t much. Racheal had groaned and rubbed her
D for Dixie
Dixie drank moonshine from a mason jar and watched the sky crack open from her front porch. The Radioman had warned them all the end of the world was coming. He warned and warned while people rushed and ran to who knows where. And while
plugged in
It was a hungry month. I ate the house empty, even the salad that turned to green soup. The ‘Apocalypse Pantry’ was all but empty but for the cases of water. I haven't left the apartment since it all started. But at some point, I
The Crawler from Under the Bed
The Crawler stinks dark purple. The color of a nasty bruise. I see the haze of violet before the smell hits my nose, before my cartoon monster hisses from behind three rows of needle teeth. He’s not the first monster to come to life from
A few thoughts on October
This will be our tenth fall in Phoenix, at least I think it is. Funny how you lose track after a while, especially when the seasons don't show up. Fall and winter in particular. So I came up with a theory that may or may not
hoop dreams
I dream you every night, clear as the empty bottle of gin on my table. I once thought you lived in the bottom of them, so I did my best to drink you free. Turns out you’re someplace darker, more dangerous…my head. I see you like
Chinook winds
I think about moving south, away from the mountains, but the chinook winds blow me back every time. I want to run away, pretend I’m alive, but this morning, I know its too late for all that. There’s a knock. I open the door wondering if
Sunday morning church
If we’re being honest here, I almost didn’t go in that place, all broken down and life-worn. It’s the church I’m talking about not the Reverend. He was a kid. Barely cut his teeth is what I was thinking. But he invited me in and
Coffee Talk With Time
I've been thinking a lot about age lately. Could be that the infamous five-oh has been staring me in the face since February. That's when Time showed up. My birthday wasn't until August but she would flare her red skirt in the shadows of my home,
Urban Patio
We slept in the house of a woman we didn’t know. She made us coffee and showed us what she called her urban porch. I sat in the sun, you in the shade, drinking our coffee wondering when the car would be fixed but not
Fried Chicken
I was in a part of the city I didn’t know, in a diner that was open at 3 am and had a Pepsi sign in the window. I was on my third coffee when a rich and rowdy group of thick-gutted men came in,
The Last Episode
You dragged me around the corner and pointed––that’s it, that’s where I saw Twilight Zone, that creature crouching at the edge of the airplane wing just staring. You know the episode. It was real. It was there, looking at me through the glass. Babe, I say,
collect call
The voices whispered in my head, hammering away with quiet, deadly words. They were the only ones in there now. They’d tied up Hope, shoved memory of better times and better dreams in her mouth, gagging her. Forcing her silent. They injected me with nightmares
Caution
We drink black pop and stare past the yellow tape. I ask, what do you think happened here? This is how we start the game, the story game. I think the papa bear came back to finish off Goldilocks, you say. He ripped the place
Fire Escape
Nine in the morning, the best time to break in, take what I want and leave. I’m not saying its sexy. And no, it isn’t legal. But it puts food on the table, at least most of the time. The trick is to do your
A Life for the Stars
I remember talking to the sky that day––after Nikki had kicked over our last jug of water and we had only one granola bar between the three of us. I hated those bars, the kind with the yogurt coating. The damn thing had melted into
Red-eyed Devil
You said if I told, the Devil would get me while I was sleeping. Reach right up from under my bed and drag me to hell. I wore socks to bed for two years. My feet sweating under the covers and one morning, a sock
Lost and Found
You can always tell the ones who are lost. They drive real slow but not too slow cause they think they’re gonna get carjacked or shot in our neighborhood. They are the ones who got lost by mistake, made a wrong turn on the way
Angel of Death
Closing time. The last eight ball slammed into the right, corner pocket. Beers were drained, and money slapped down on the sweaty table––we were ravenous, cast out into the streets past midnight and looking for greasy hash browns, chicken and waffles. You slid out of the
Surfer dude
P. is almost 60 years old (but looks 74 in good light), an early retired analyst and a wannabe hipster. It doesn’t suit him, I’ve told him as much, but he just scowls and keeps waxing his surfboard. This morning, little flakes of white wax float
Daisies on the Wall
We hadn’t talked for days. I don’t remember why; why you threw down the book you were reading, why I walked out. But the flowers I bought at Mr. Higgins corner store, I still see them plain as smog over the city. Daisies. White ones.
Making things up and why I do it
As a writer, you’d think I’d have a lot to say. That so many months wouldn’t have gone by between newsletters. I do have plenty to say, but all of it is made up. I find real life stuff hard to write about or even boring––at
Devil in the Details
What you selling? Asked the young man, or maybe he was old, who could tell under the sweat baked dirt. Every morning for three weeks he asked the same thing when I opened up the lifeguard tower. He slept under my feet, in the shade. Nobody
Politicians and Zombies
It’s not just about having cases of water or tins of beans; it’s a mindset, a mindset that could save your bacon, said the man who could have been a preacher in a previous life. The blue vein in his temple pulsed as he talked,
Antlers in the Window
You didn’t know––I rented a space down on Van Buren Street––a place you’d never go. It wasn’t planned, not until we moved in together and you threw out my antlers. It wasn’t the look you were going for, you said. I let you have the win
Wheel in the Sky
This is where we said we’d meet, by the Ferris wheel in my dreams, like it was a real place and not on the edge of all the worlds. You were anyone, faceless and holding white flowers in one hand and pink cotton candy in
434 Amity Road
We argued that day, looking for the safe house. There’s no one to ask for directions, I said. It’s not a guy thing. You clicked your teeth, the way I hate, the way you do when you want to piss me off. But the pencil
My son…
You did everything in squares. Four was your magic number, the one that calmed you, the one you divided everything by. It took your mother and I a few years to figure this out, how you slept better in the refrigerator box you made into
Not the Real Alice
You told me once that you were Alice in another life. The Alice. You said this while looking out your fire escape window. Three Tabby cats, well feed and rough looking, stared at you from the outside. At night, their eyes glowed orange, the same
Lined with Crazy
We were layered up and walking with our Tim Hortons coffee. You left your lid open so it would cool, and I went straight in for the mouth burn. You didn’t say much, and I was cool with that. I didn’t like your voice. For
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