Outside it was warm and the lupine stalks were bending down, some on their faces like mollusks gumming the ground but not making it very far, frozen mid-suck. The dog smelled bad, a telltale bad like she’d rubbed herself in… Read More ›
aging
The long descent through the quarry
I got down on my hands and knees in the shower with a toothbrush and some baking soda paste. The web site said if the drain had a musty smell that was mold, but if it was more like a… Read More ›
Fifty-fifty clown
The crow’s wings are magician hands that flap and disappear through the swirl of animal souls and the gray marine layer of morning. The lake is gray too, ribbed by a breeze or by paddle boats, the same each day… Read More ›
Hello and goodbye
Everyone wanted to know how my hypnotherapy session went, including me. It took a while to relax because I’d hurried there from work and had to rub my eyes to make the GANTT charts go away. But when the meditation… Read More ›
What was left
What was left in Charlotte’s bowl wasn’t worth saving. But I ate it on principle, so it wouldn’t go to waste. And there was an analogy in that, to going back to my hometown for our annual visit, gumming the… Read More ›
Happiness is easy
Two weeks ago, we went to brunch at the local ale house and I tried to nap before going to the airport. In a moment of clarity, Lily deleted all the data on her phone and gave it to Charlotte,… Read More ›
Real time
Probably the most comforting thing I could do was drink in bed. When I quit drinking I wrote a list of all the things I pledged I wouldn’t do when I started drinking again and one of the top 3… Read More ›
No breaks (from a plane)
There were times I felt like I had to write, I had the impulse, to save the moment. I thought I could just throw my arms out and surround it, I could throw my line in the water and bring… Read More ›
Regret
I imagined the house quiet, after they’d left. I could hear the memory of their voices as they were now, an echo. I could feel my heart pull in the way a hand contracts to a fist, the way a… Read More ›
Refraction (- – – — — — – – -)
Charlotte and I tried to play Scrabble but got frustrated, and dumped all the tiles back in the box. The best we came up with was Mosaic and Pirana, Pirana hers, not exactly right, needing an H or a symbol… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 