Both girls overdo it with the perfume; they lack subtlety. The landing just outside our bedroom is now a miasma of sweet, with Charlotte’s BF Rosie living here. When Dawn’s gone I stretch out like a starfish in bed but… Read More ›
Creative Nonfiction
August Moon
Walked to the lake in the dark for the first time in a while, sick of being cooped up. Forgot how it looks when there’s fog in the street lamps, a cone of milky light with bugs flapping about. Frogs… Read More ›
The continuing story of Bungalow Bill
Rummage around long enough in the grab-bag of memories and you’ll find something strange. This one, a party in college where everyone was in costumes and on LSD: a guy named Don with a sheet of acid dressed like Captain… Read More ›
Waxing gibbous
Friday is a carbon copy of Wednesday with the post-dinner ice cream at the DQ—same order and procedure pulling into the same parking spot, spooning it with the windows down—except on Friday the queer, wildfire smoke sun is back, the… Read More ›
Why September always starts with fog
I have no idea. But it’s much better than pure gray. The blurring adds mystery, makes Japanese watercolors out of the banal. Took a drive last night for an ice cream, first time in six days outside the perimeter of… Read More ›
From witness to judge
As kids growing up in a town outside a city we moved like packs of wild dogs sniffing around for something to do, some trouble to get ourselves into. All towns have real live horror stories and this one involved… Read More ›
Waxing gibbous
For all my romanticizing the coming of fall it’s heartbreaking to think summer’s nearly over. You forget how much the next six months are ass. The sound of kids playing in someone’s yard well past sunset tonight seemed an apt… Read More ›
Touching from a distance
Getting off to cough syrup seems like a lower order high but now that l’ve resigned all vices but caffeine I’m not above it. Weird dreams? No problem. The melatonin did that for a while but got too weird for… Read More ›
Our endless, numbered days
The cougar was more than a cougar, it was a metaphor. A fear of the unknown or being tracked by something immutable, time itself. If it were a Castaneda novel the cougar would be a witch, supernatural. I’d have to… Read More ›
Ripeness
It could have been the sound of the church bells on my early morning walk, going through the last few years of late August memories. Parsing through the past was like looking across a vista, trying to make out what… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 