"Where would you like to begin?"

"I was on a date, like a blind date. Jill set it up. She's also the one who gave me your number."

"Yes, I know Ms. Sinclair. Lovely girl, plays tennis with my daughter."

"Right. So I was on this date with a guy - I think his name was Paul. I'm pretty sure it was Paul. You'd think I'd remember that, right? Anyway, we were on this date. He took me to see that movie starring that guy George Whathisname? From the hospital show? You know the movie, probably, the one where he gets his slip and you spend the whole movie wondering what it says and he hides it even from his wife. He goes through all of these revelations about life and purpose, really heavy-handed crap. Finally, he goes missing because he is on this Native American vision quest thing and his ditzy wife goes into his drawers and all through his stuff. It's seriously like a half hour of her sorting through his boxers and business paper looking for the slip intercut with him sitting on a rock looking all Zen. And it turns out that he is fated to die because of her. It's her name on the slip and he's spent this whole time being around her anyway. I guess it was supposed to be uplifting or ...

Dan feels the gun against his temple. One question rushes through his head: does he have time enough to put down the television in his arms? It is an older model and feels like it is lined with lead. He wonders absently if it actually does contain lead - his mother used to warn him about blindness from sitting too close to the set, maybe it was because of the radiation the lead would block.

"What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" A low, thick voice asks.

"Stealing your television," he offers, not daring to turn his head. Is it better to get a bullet in the temple than one in the face? Somehow that seems more survivable. It doesn't make sense to him to lie to this armed woman. This is all pretty obvious. He doubts she will believe he is the Grinch in Santa's clothes, just borrowing the TV to fix so she can watch Frosty and Rudolph.

She releases the safety. He had never actually heard a gun do that before, at least not in real life and certainly not when held just above his left ear, but there is no mistaking the sound. If he is going to die tonight, he wishes he could do it in a nicer apartment. Aside from a sofa and dresser, the place does not look lived in. ...

"You look lonely."

He glanced up at the woman, who had slithered behind him while he distracted himself counting stars. She seemed familiar, but he couldn't place her. She had a shy face that seemed inclined to blush with little preamble and carefully trimmed blonde hair that gravity held flat despite her attempts at layering. Of course, he had seen her around at the party, but she didn't register as more than that until now. She was just another college student he had seen in the background of this existence without remembering. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he thought he knew he name.

Returning his gaze to the stars, he sighed, "I am not lonely, only momentarily alone." Sensing her backing up, he continued, "But I wouldn't mind your company."

She smiled sweetly, drunkenly. "Why are you in the cold, Will? Come be social inside." She sits on the dewy gray bench next to him. The combination of the half-drained glass of red wine in her hand and the autumn chill after the mugginess of the party succeeded in making her light-headed. She took another small sip of the wine once she was confident the world wasn't going to slip out from under her. The warmth of liquor grew her ...

All is stale and damp, reeking of marijuana and the sweat of writhing teenagers. Phosphorescent murals of Dante's inferno adorn the walls of the vacant factory where the rave takes place. Above me, a devil the blue of a lighter's flame attempts to rape a particularly comely, earth tone angel.

I preside over this tableau from a ratty velveteen couch, suspended from the staircase above. I relax into my perch to observe the bald depravity of an underage lesbian couple undulating. The latex of their shirts sticks and pulls as they increase their friction, as though to simulate intimacy. Though I lean forward so as to not miss a single moment of their mutual frottage, they exist only for one another and the ecstasy coursing through their blood.

As their embrace threatens to transcend the startling edge where experimentation turns to molestation, a fair-haired woman propels them apart. She moves as though dancing through water. I nod, an amused smirk on my lips, which she takes as invitation.

A stumbling drunk interferes with her glide to my sofa, causing her to tumble onto the cushions with an utter want of grace, nearly spilling the drink she hold. My throne sways for her, almost meeting the ...

He shook his head as though startled awake. "Are you talking to me?" He straightened the books he nearly hugged into his chest, seeming more concerned with their falling than this girl or her question. She knew was late to Interpersonal Dynamic and, if he stopped, she would make him later.

Her sheepish eyes met his and she stammered, "Yeah. For my class. Photo. Art 150. With Smulcheski. Fran. I have it tomorrow. I need more pictures. I only have 5. It's 24 exposure film. So, can I take your picture?"

"Okay, sure. It's not like you can steal me soul." He gave a broad, cheesy smile. She squeaked enthusiastically and hopped, which made his smile far more genuine. "Just don't make me your final project, I don't need that pressure," he warned, wagging a finger at her and laughing again.

"I won't..." She turned the lens. Click. Whirr. Readjust. "...I promise..." Click. Whirr. Readjust. "...on my honor..." Click. Whirr. Readjust. "...as a girl scout." Click. Whirr. Readjust.

His eyebrows raised. "Well, Girl ...

Keith was nothing special in an age when being unique pushed one from the herd. We all know what happens to those who wander from the herd, don't we? A predator does their species a favor.

A mediocre student, never managing to excel or fail at anything in particular, he was good enough to graduate high school, but possessed neither the grades nor the inclination to attempt college. Had he, he would have been better off financially, but would have died in a car accident one June, swerving away from a woodchuck. Without college, the woodchuck was spared such a sin on its furry soul

A month after he graduated, he married his sweetheart Anne. Seven and a half months later, she bore Keith his only daughter, Marie Lynn Samuels.

Keith was content, as his kind tends to be once they have rutted and spawned. A wife, a child, a house, a job at his father's construction company, what more could a man want?

He showed an unexpected deviancy. He was not drafted, like so many of his former classmates turned co-workers. He chose to join the army and serve his country.

He put in a few good years. Unfortunately for him, fortunately for us, he didn't see much action. Owing to some first ...

Dawn rose after noon the day she died. You've known her since kindergarten, when she stole your fire truck during recess and you socked her in the arm. You had been inseparable since, once she contented herself to take no more than most of your time and the only pain you caused her involved pointed questions.

You watched as she side-stepped the homeless woman begging change on the corner. From across the opposite curb, you saw the truck crush her, your arm caught in mid-wave. You rushed to her, but the damage was too severe, too unquestionably fatal. You'd heard that quick deaths are supposed to be a comfort because the deceased didn't suffer.

Dawn disagreed. Once you were home again, after answering the questions from the police, once you were back in your apartment with the tension and fear leaking from your eyes, your phone rang. Dawn asked you to swing by the hospital and pick her up. She hung up and didn't answer when you called back. So you went to pick her up because what else were you to do?

She told you that it had been a mistake. The truck had just shocked her heart, but she'd revived thanks to adrenaline. "Could you not mention this to anyone else?" she asked, almost ...

He pulls back the wooden chair from the table. It moans as its legs scrape the linoleum floor causing him to wince as he sits. He piles his large, black coat on the chair beside him - too big for the chair and much too big for him - releasing a breeze of leather and incense. Nervously, he looks across the table at the raven haired girl. When her lips break into a coy smile, he returns the expression, and graces her soft cheek with the backs of his fingertips.

"Been waiting long?"

She smiles at his trite word choice and thinks for a moment of saying, "I've been waiting 17 years." She decides against this because she cannot manage to get those words out, her throat constricts at the mere thought. She wasn't sure if that was true or such sentiments would go over well. Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - in these few weeks of getting to know him through long conversations on her parents' phone, he seemed like a trapped animal looking for a way to escape. Other times, he seemed placid, caged or no. Instead, she chirps the lie that she only just got to the diner. She had been waiting at least half an hour, but she wanted to be early to miss nothing, not even anticipation. She hardly wanted to burden him. ...

"You're wonderful," Amber says, looking up from her bracelets.

"I'm not. We have long arguments in my head, only I think better of including you in them. It's like playing chess, thinking a dozen moves ahead and not seeing any positive outcomes."

"Oh," she says brightly. "You can say whatever you want to me."

I raise an eyebrow, ceasing for a moment the task of trying to clean and organize our apartment two weeks after we've moved in. "No. I really cannot if you are going to persist in liking me and living here."

I want for this to be our apartment, to exploit the artistic talent of my girlfriend for decorative purposes, but she is too busy. I haven't missed her more than I have these last few weeks, when all of her time is given to making bracelets. I go to bed without her and she stumbles in at three or four to get a few hours sleep before returning to the pins, thread, and denim. I don't fault her, I would work hard to meet a deadline with such a seductive pay out, but it is nevertheless ...

In the last month, Amber and I have done The Pine Bush UFO Festival and Parade and the Berkshire Anime and Manga Convention. I can see how people would presume that these events are cake walks. After all, we just sit there, not doing much of anything, while fun things occur all around us (n.b., usually when you are having transcendent amounts of fun, there is someone nearby being paid minimum wage to sweep up after you or help you stay hydrated at a premium).

For the UFO Festival, we woke up at five in the morning on a Saturday, drove over an hour, set up a tent and a half dozen displays, unloaded thousands of dollars worth of Amber’s art and my books that I bought from my publisher months ago at no small expense, all while sitting outside ten feet from terrible DJs who put on a mix of the worst songs in history, turned up to level that genuinely caused my body to shake, and then left it on random for the next six hours while pollen from the trees attempted to make sweet, nonconsensual ...