Out

“He kind of likes me, but he’s only 8. I try to be nice to him because the girl he was going out with broke his heart.”
“Going out?” I said.
“Yeah, he was dating her.”
“What does an 8 year old do on a date?” I asked.
She shrugged, “Oh, you know, go for a walk or ride [...]

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In

How vast the chasm
Between in love
And love.
One is madness,
Bad judgment,
Exulted.
One is steady,
Careful,
Enduring.
Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “in.”

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Off

He called his dad expecting his dad to get him off, like always. Find him a lawyer, bail him out, and return him to the street where he could get more of what he needed as soon as possible.
His dad said no. Said a bunch of annoying shit that made him so angry that he [...]

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On

We called her Jackrabbit. It seemed her scamper button was always on. She could make two runs through whatever we were visiting on our touristy jaunts while the rest of us dragged through one look.
She climbed the hill to the Parthenon while adding in side trips to see downed columns and jaunts to off the [...]

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Bum’s rush

Listen, pal, I’ll tell ya this. I hang around with a lot of millionaires in my line of work. And I can tell  you for sure that most of them are a bunch of nut bags. Weird, like, ya know what I mean? One dude won’t eat in a restaurant on account of some joint [...]

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Sore

“I’m so sore,” the eleven year old moaned.
Her twelve and one day old cousin, the owner of a new Wii, rolled over and said, “Ow, me, too.”
“That Wii gives you a workout,” eleven offered. She sat up in the bed and demonstrated the technique needed to swim, then clutched her sore arms.
“Hmm,” muttered the unexposed [...]

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Polar Bear

“Look at those bear feet,” I said, pointing. My thoughts were a mishmash—thinking about how beautifully adapted they were, thinking about the size of those claws in a bear claw necklace, and thinking how sad it is that a polar bear has a better chance of survival in a New Mexico zoo than in the [...]

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Lemonade

You can see them, two cute little tweens, one with pink-tipped hair, selling lemonade in front of my house. People stop, not because they are thirsty or hot, but because they like to support young entrepreneurs. Or because two blond girls are smiling and waving at them and it’s irresistable. Or because they are in [...]

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Pointed

In a mostly empty sky, tall and narrow clouds–pointed as arrowheads–piled up on the west side of the mountains. Like sudden upheavals of white, they looked like new peaks and knobs above the dry, rocky brown of the mountain barrier that slowed their movement. They promised no rain, no break in the shimmering blue heat [...]

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Jeni said

“Jeni said to always dig a ten dollar hole for a five dollar tree.”
I looked up from my digging at my dad’s doddery old aunt. She was usually famously and hilariously way out in left field with her comments, except when she quoted my grandmother—her sister Jeni. “You sayin’ I need a bigger hole?”
“Jeni said,” [...]

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