A slight breeze blew out toward the grandstands. I stared in toward home plate and picked up the catcher’s sign. I raised my right arm, hardball in my hand, and eyed the batter. The count was three balls, two strikes, …
My dad surprised me with two gifts towards the end of his life. Both came with expectations I ignored at the time. I regret that now.
In those days, he and my mother made an annual trip from the Connecticut home where …
There was a miniature battlefield of ruined buildings and poorly painted models that sat in the basement of a tidy house in the Maryland countryside. With the coughing pestilence scouring the land, the governor had ordered a statewide quarantine. Zeke …
One jump plus three broken vases equals one bad cat.
Diane Hess is a New Jersey resident employed by the Jefferson Township Public Library. She hosts Wordsmiths, a writing group that meets once a month at the library. Besides reading, …
What if I waved my arms around in circles and kicked my feet like I was treading water? The sky resembled a receding ocean in oil-blue. It made my eyes swim.
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I sat in the La-Z-Boy®, smoking cigarettes like …
I tossed your clothes out the window, let them rain down on you along with my rage, while you stood looking up, begging for yet another chance. I’d hoped that would be the end of it. Every last trace of …
The porch light was on, and the brown, two-story craftsman house looked welcoming. A rubber ball lay on the lawn, and someone had scribbled on the walkway with colorful chalk. Pink and yellow flowers flanked the porch steps, and a …
Suzie Morgan was the first kid to disappear. It was hot out, and the fields were full of grasshoppers. The big ones that didn’t just jump, but they also flew away from you when you tried to catch them. And …
The automaton’s ivory fingers danced across the harpsichord keys with a precision that would’ve made Vivaldi weep. A delicate trill here, a diabolical chromatic scale there, major and minor notes clamoring over each other like rioting primadonnas. Musically, it was …
The crowd outside is angry. They shout obscenities at each other to build courage, shake pieces of pipe, boards, baseball bats, all to manufacture menace. They mill about the beyond the house, waiting for their pinned back energy to reach …