TWITCH Often as I’m fading away to the better world we can only reach in sleep, I feel the movement of a large black Labrador against my leg. Skylar is lost in her own dream, her legs twitching. She yips softly, and I wonder what she’s seeing. I remember my parents used to say that…

GATE This is about love, and loss. One is temporary, the other, eternal. What happened yesterday was profound, I believe, because it never happens. When I am by myself, the conscious thought “I am alone” never occurs to me. Yesterday afternoon, it did. The late afternoon sun filled the yard I had just cleared of…

LAUNDROMAT GUNMAN SHOOTS SEVEN Self-representation is risky, I know. I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that I have a fool for a client. Both the public defender and the honorable judge Willoby have enlightened me with that clever maxim. Nonetheless, I am here to enlighten you, the jury, with a perspective that no one else possesses.…

Story originally submitted to Narratively’s 2024 Memoir Contest Spoiler alert: The title’s elements are in reverse order of their appearance. Also, the Singer was a sewing machine. And me, I was a funny thirteen-year-old kid doing hard time at middle school, counting down the final weeks until my three-year sentence was served. To have some…

The house is dark. It’s an empty dark.   Bottomless pit black.   I wish I could flip a switch and flood this place with light. With love. With life.   The way it once was.   So brilliant, so happy, so dazzling.   Forever bright, the fool thought – to myself.    Infinity belongs to the night.…

GYM GOLD “You want to work in for a couple sets?” It’s meant to be a joke, because it’s laughable. The only place where Jim Gold and I work out together would be a gym in an alternate universe. Jim Gold is six foot eight, weighs well north of three hundred pounds, and most of…

FATHERHOOD I am not ready for this. A fragile life hangs in the balance. It’s my own flesh and blood, my responsibility. It feels as if his life is in my hands. I look at them and will them not to tremble.   My God. I’m not ready. But that doesn’t matter. The fact is,…

SATURDAY NIGHT FOREVER Tonight’s the night. If all goes well, I — I should stop right there.    Tonight has the potential to be big. I’m at an invitation-only wedding at Hotel Bel-Air. My “plus one” is Haley Sinclair, the incredible girl that I’m going to marry. If I work up the nerve to ask her,…

IT’S NOT ME, IT’S SHOES “You know…” She said, in the way she would often begin a conversation. My eyes never left my phone’s screen, but I did grunt an acknowledgement. “I’ve given it a good try, a fair one. But – It’s not working for me and it’s not going to.” I looked up…