Temple’s Mentor

Between the weeklong mentoring retreat and the four-day money migration futurecasting conference, Temple had only one day left for work, and perhaps because of that pending workload,

It’s for You

I picked up the phone and Mom was on the line. Mom! Dear Mom! On the phone! Well! What do you know! I heard the fake smile in her voice. She hadn’t dialed and I hadn’t dialed. Our phones had both rung and we had both answered: the network was trying something new.

20% More Synonymous

When I’ve finished writing my dictionary, things will be different in this world among English-speaking people and between you and me. When we first learned them, words were something hefty we could thrump with our knuckles the way we test a melon.

Social Security

If I look you in the eye, it’s for what I need to know. You’ll learn nothing. All you need to know is this uniform and the benevolent authority it represents. The more you fidget and try to persuade me, the solider I stand in these black shoes.

Shaking Off the Signals

He was never the brash young hurler from Texas or Australia who brushed back batters from the plate with high inside heat. From the start, he threw more college stuff. I didn’t try to change him. I work with what I know is on the mound on game day.

Change of Trains

It so happens I’m sick of being a man if this is what it means. I won’t be home today or at the office either. I’ve been summoned and nothing else matters. Permit me to narrate.

Bobcat in a Box

Life may be short but forgetting takes forever, especially when they leave something behind. It’ll be four years now since Bob walked out with nowhere in particular to go, just trying to make distance from me.

Ad Hominem

Until my hitchhiker showed me her gun, I’d been speculating whether crazy and neglect could render a woman nearly unrecognizable since I’d last seen her. She’d chosen a shockingly dangerous place to flag down cars,

Fear

Our fear of tooth decay is functional; of saber-tooth tigers is not; of decay—or for that matter decadence—as a destination, can’t keep us from turning into soup bones and stew. It might save us some pain if being afraid kept us from visiting the dentist, but once we’re in the chair, it only makes things worse.

While I Was Out

Even professionals need roommates in this town if they want to live anywhere close to the action. He’s been gone a month and now I need a new one, but only freaks are responding. You’d think with the rent I’m charging they’d self-select, but everybody thinks they can afford it.