So much drama in these clouds it could be late summer, pre-autumn. All the limbs waving and the windmill going, the swoosh of the leaves. I am out with the headphones on a walk and the Moody Blues again, a… Read More ›
Creative Nonfiction
Last number for the season
Dozing on the sofa on a Saturday with just the sound of clocks and some far-off engine. Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues and all this rumination on time. The record is draped in the 60s and feels… Read More ›
Everything we have we’ll lose
When you say goodbye to someone you love it’s a knife’s edge between the past and present. They are both with you and not. It can feel like the amputee’s phantom limb or Schrödinger’s cat, the seam between seasons when… Read More ›
On the plane to Barcelona
On May 1 I took a one-way flight from JFK to Barcelona but when I landed the airport was closed, the workers on strike for May Day, the only occupants a group of young Spaniards in uniforms with beards and… Read More ›
Sunday morning on Capitol Hill
When I came to Seattle in my 20s it felt like anything was possible. We drove from Philadelphia with all our possessions, my girlfriend and our books, jade plants, my two cats Pokey and Sherman. Passing through the last leg… Read More ›
Primitive painters
There are parts of the chicken that don’t look like they should be eaten but dad does anyway, hunched over the table and working it with his hands and lips. Because he’s missing some teeth dad doesn’t chew as much… Read More ›
Near adults, just kids
I always did mushrooms on an empty stomach. That’s what my friend John Kimmich said to do. We’d sit in that shithole apartment on our recliners staring at the TV waiting for it to kick in. It was always the… Read More ›
The Slider
If there’s a brotherly love that can happen between men, I felt it most for my old Cajun friend Myki. And I think about him every Fat Tuesday when the Mardi Gras music starts, and wonder what he’s up to…. Read More ›
Seeing through screens
In the middle of the night, from the other side of the room, I can hear the sound of the dog breathing. It is a deep, peaceful sound like a human’s breath. The cat, on the other hand, makes no… Read More ›
Made-up dreams
When Dawn is gone and I have the bed to myself I spread out like a starfish and fall into a deep sleep. Last night I dreamt I saw a younger version of myself; the two of us were introduced… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 