I, Witness

If tomorrow they locked us all in jail, how many of us could testify our way out? I’ve been looking at mug shot books all morning and nobody in this whole jury of peers collection looks not guilty. I wonder, if they gave me the book of women, would I find innocence there?

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,

Freeing the Cats

The tiniest fang-like tooth, which, every time it has settled against the stop inside the lock, has kept the bolt from sliding free from the jamb of the big cat cage, had been misaligned from the start and, weakened by thousands of abuses, finally snapped.

Proof of the World

In this 300-word paper, I will prove that the world exists, beyond a reasonable doubt, as I was assigned. 277 words to go. First premise: as everybody I know will tell you, I am to blame for everything.

Impress Only Me

Something so good and pure at the core of a man like my husband hardens to a bullet in the forge of an inhuman world. He might laugh at me for saying so. He doesn’t need me to sing his praise. Those who don’t know him will never admit his humility.

Conscious Choice

Limping from the crash site, she resumed the inventory she’d begun while hauling her legs from the driver’s seat: legs, two arms, fingers and thumbs, head, scalp, blood. She’d been driving fast on the rain-slick freeway to the casino,

Not Senseless

What must it feel like to know you’re being operated on. Hear the happy surgeons chat about vacation homes while they stab and reach inside you. Just a few steps from the diner door, the first blow paralyzed me. I fought my body as it fell, but couldn’t make it move.

The Buddy Conundrum

In later stages of the experiment, there was little to distinguish the personalities of man and dog, wolf and wolfman, shark and man.

1. His Unhappiness

When we were dating, I thought it would end when we got married. I thought I could solve the secret of his unhappiness. Then we got married and it didn’t end. When we had our baby and it didn’t end, I knew it would never end but I didn’t leave.

2. My Unhappiness

Unhappiness! She talked about it as if it were a disease we could die from instead of what it is. A mood. The body’s own weather. I don’t have to tell you marriage can be stormy.