He was late to work. Again. His boss told him this was going to be his last chance, told him that he’d had too many in the past. It wasn’t a great job, but it fulfilled most of the requirements of his odd lifestyle. Working nights, limited interaction with human beings. His last chance to …
Their son screams from his room, where they sent him on the advice of a professional. “It’s painful, but if it’s what we have to do…” She trails off with a sigh of resignation. “I know. I don’t like it either.” He sits at the kitchen counter, rubbing his hands into his face as though …
Melissa performs her morning ritual with a bit of extra care today. This is her day. The day she can become whole. After years of psychiatric counseling and medication, neurological scans, being poked and prodded like a test subject: she’s going to get her chance. She brushes her hair with her right hand, only her …
I walk down the tree lined street and the sun shines through making animal shapes on the sidewalk, and then a bus goes by filled with children, their screams and smiling faces poking out through the thin windows which won’t open enough for them to possibly fall out of because that’s dangerous just like the …
His eyes slowly open, the brightness of day shocking him. What day is it? He’s not sure. The clock stares at him, red digits glaring 11:31AM. He would have just overslept, in his old life. Daniel sits up and slings his sore legs over the edge of the bed. He’s always so tired nowadays. It’s …
Old Jack was the star of this movie, and he’d never forgive the world for that. He would stand, crinkled notebook in hand, on street corners. Praying someone would notice. Praying that someone would realize they were the audience, and give him a chance to be heard. It was a hard life, and it showed …
A little boy sits on the carpet in a room painted a gentle shade of blue. He sees the world in black and white. “Mom” and “Dad” are more ideas than they are identifiers. Two larger, adult humans who care for him and meet some of his needs. He sees their faces as individual features, …
“They call it Peter Pan Syndrome,” he says disdainfully. Smoke curls out from his nostrils, a dragon in bright athletic gear. He sermonizes from a cushy leather couch in one of his three living rooms. “They say I don’t want to grow up. But that’s not really what it is.” “Do you mind if I …
Everything is in order in Mr. Nelson’s little world. His plot of earth is ringed by a perfect square of boxwood, shaved level across the top. His dogs trimmed into poofs of white hair, elongated bare limbs stretching down to tufted feet. Mr. Nelson maintains it all with a great deal of labor, but it …
The dizzying anxieties and paradoxical boredoms of moving from one home to another are something that–when not actively in the grips of it–it’s difficult to remember. The past 5 days have been a blur of heavy lifting, piloting a wide truck through narrow city streets, and finally coming to rest somewhere in the borough of …
