My sister loves minions. The yellow, banana-eating, overall-wearing, big-eyed things from a family movie called Despicable Me? Yep… that’s the kind. The things you see middle-aged women post memes on Facebook. My sister is obsessed. She eats bananas daily, watches the movies, probably has every plush minion made. I never […]
My Sister Loves Minions Read More »
I’m a vigilante online predator hunter, and I can’t explain the bizarre things that happened last night. I jolted awake in bed as my phone blared with a message. hey baby. we’ve been talking long enough. i want to meet you now. My blood turned to ice as I read
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The drifter had been walking all day and he was on the lookout for a place to bed down for the night. That is easier said than done due to the fact that he likes to travel strictly by the back roads, for reasons only he really knows. He was
My name is Andrew Erics. I used to live in a city you probably heard of called New York. My mother is Terrie Erics—Teresa, really. She’s in the phone book under “E”—if they even have those things any more. Maybe you can just Google her. I don’t know. If you
Part 1 My name is Conrad King. I work with my father in research and development at a large tech company. Over the past year, he and I stumbled our way through a very fascinating engineering breakthrough. We discovered that by vibrating a rare metal at a very precise frequency,
My Father and I Created a Device That Warps Reality Read More »
Jim Sterling was not having a good night. For reasons he couldn’t begin to grasp, his life had become a nexus of misery. First, the snack machine down the hall from his office had eaten his last dollar. After pressing F4, he watched with hungry anticipation as the automated coil
“There is no free will.” Those are the first words I ever read. I woke to them every day for many years. They were written on a sign. The sign was hung above the opposite row of bunks in the Sleeping Barn. I have no memories from before the farm; I assumed I was born there.
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I was lucky enough to know my 93-year-old grandmother when I was a child. She was a window into another era. A harder time. “Most people weren’t but much more than farmers back then,” she recalled to me one morning. “If you didn’t have friends to help your family out
I Was Born on a Child Farm – Part Zero Read More »
I smelled the coal smoke before I opened my eyes. For a moment, I was eight again, in the shop where my grandfather repaired motors. I used to sit by his old stove and watch him work. “Hannah, what’s the piston firing order of a small block Chevrolet?” he’d ask,
I moved to London from India immediately after my wedding with Karan. My husband was living in London for 6 years and his then accommodation was a shady studio apartment, which to me was simply uninhabitable. After a lot of coaxing, he finally agreed to look for a new place.
I was part of Project Atlantis. Among the various scientific endeavors undertaken by the Russian government throughout the mid-late 20th century, underwater exploration was always kept quiet. Attempts had been made to source renewable energy, document new species, and of course explore new oceanic ecosystems that could perhaps hold the
Have you ever forgotten your phone? When did you realize you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realization probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were
This happened to me a few years ago when I was working for a small-time administration office as a security guard. The building had just been purchased by the company and was in a sad state of disrepair, so while there were no actual employees working in the building at
My Coworker Showed Up For His Opening Shift, the Day After His Funeral Read More »
My eyes opened quickly as I heard the whisper. “Wanna see something, Charlie?” It happened last night. The newest prison guard on the block opened my cell, smiled, and informed me I was to gather my things and move to the end of our oldest cell block. He looked to
The New Guard at San Quentin Prison Isn’t Human Read More »
I never liked going to my aunt Paola’s house. Honestly, I never liked her either. She’s a creepy bible-thumping Jesus fanatic and she’d always circle over me like a vulture. But none of that creeped me out like her house did. It was old, run-down and filled with weird religious
[Recording begins] “The date is November 1st, 2018. This is–” [coughs] “This is Detective Ray Sherman, excuse me. Badge number 13557, of the Internal Affairs Investigation Unit, number 334. We are investigating the night of October 31st, 2018, Case AF6H765, where Officer Pete Mendoza was found alone with five surrounding
The tents appeared in the middle of the night, without preamble. There was some heated discussion at city hall, because not even the mayor knew they were coming. They must’ve worked out something, though, because the gypsy circus stayed. Our town wasn’t big enough to support even a fair, so
When the Circus Came to Town Read More »
Part 1: Good Will Hunting I’m a producer for Alone, the TV show on History. This story is about a participant we had in season 2, whose footage we had to cut. I’ve never felt comfortable talking about this before, especially because it opens me up for liability. After all,
Though I’ve spiced up the narrative a bit, this is a mostly accurate account of what happens to me on a regular basis. Throughout my life I’ve been diagnosed with various sleep disorders, the most common being insomnia. Some of the pills they give me to counter that end up
5:58 AM “There is an unexpected turn in the weather this morning, say our local meteorologists. Instead of seeing a warm day, we are getting a snowstorm that sources are saying could turn into the storm of the century.” Dad turned off the radio, grumpy as hell this early in
The Witch of Arlena Falls Read More »
My family and I moved to Denver about two years ago. I work for an art school that transferred me from my remote Orlando office, and the city that I had called home for the past fifteen years, to the main college campus that is situated just outside of downtown
I know they say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but for me it’s Halloween. I deck the hall with cobwebs and fake spiders. It’s just such a special time. Autumn is here and the leaves are beginning to fall. It’s a time for dressing up and
Stories For My Daughter Read More »
I live in a country where, unfortunately, Halloween is not a big thing. It’s almost not a thing at all, and this fact disappoints me to no end. I’m a bored 19-year-old living in a small town where everyone I know still acts like they did when they were 14.
Unfinished Business Read More »
I have a confession to make. I have been trying so hard to forget what I saw, but now that Halloween is right around the corner again, all these memories resurfaced all of a sudden. I now know it was wrong to keep my mouth shut. But before I tell
My Son Did Something Terrible on Halloween Read More »
