At the corner of 17th Avenue and Broadway, a young man built an oasis into his condominium. The tall corner window stretches floor to ceiling and a red snapping turtle swims lazily, turning to watch puzzled passersby. I peek through
An Abandoned Changeling
[This is a sad story, and I wish it wasn’t true.]
In Iowa, the fairies came out in spring, building temporary homes in melted snow pooled between half-buried tree roots, bordered by mud and moss. Walking home from school, I’d
Refuge
Mountain leaves and palindromes; the girl could not create one from the other. “I give up,” she said, bowing her head to the old man. “All my answers are wrong. I don’t know how they are alike.”
He grunted and
Coyote Spirits Got the Moonshine … Again
I stumbled out of the sleeping porch, rubbing my eyes. Granny spoke before I could even say good morning. “It’s them damned coyotes,” she said crankily. “Drinking the moonshine–the thieves!–and from the sounds of it, they got themselves some of
The Stories of Harpies and Humanity
Thirty miles outside of Crescent City, we ran out of gas. The van had been sputtering for the past 400 miles, and I recognized imminent engine failure. We stepped out, stretched, and wandered the edge of the forest for a
Junkett Hauser
The old man kept a jeweled caterpillar in his shirt pocket and only took it out for frail girls with haunted eyes and thrift-store sweaters. My mother saw it when she waitressed at the little Hungarian restaurant on 44th street
…Loyal Friends and Light Portals
At midday, Becky races through the tree-lined streets, pack swinging and bubblegum snapping. She’s vowed to arrive on time to chem class. Her skirt swishes at her knees and she smiles at the street bums, singing with the airy pop
The Tulpa
I spent 1917 in a series of anonymous seaside cottages, bunking with proper socialites so that I might press their gowns and wash their teacups. The daughters of London lords taught me to summon Baphomet, and I taught them to …
The Parthenogenesis of Mabel the Teenage Komodo Dragon
I have always loved Komodo dragons … from afar. Parthenogensis in Komodo dragons is a real phenomenon.
Poor Mabel. It was just unfair that she was so decidedly ugly and unpopular a Komodo dragon. She had tried to make
Supermarket of the Damned
Image by Scragz
When Raymond died in a tragic avocado toast accident, he discovered that his assumptions about the afterlife were utterly incorrect. He had figured that his parents, teachers and all those assholes at his high school would attend