Pistachio nuts littered the thin blue vinyl covering of the table. Salt and dust collected on the pads of Brendan’s fingers. He cracked each nut with excessive force, letting the splintered shells fall idly from his hands. Not that he was paying any attention to them. His gaze was focused […]
I still dream about the ocean, waves capped with foam, the whispered poetry of high tide, pools filled with brine-crusted treasures. I dream about storms and faces. A roar of thunder wakes me to a cold sweat and an empty room, and I try to fall back asleep. I try
I wish I had my big sister’s hair. Hers is soft and light. Touching her arms is like touching peach fuzz. When she sweats her skin looks like melted butter. It’s not fair. My hair is thick, wiry, and black as spider legs. I’m only thirteen and I have thicker hair on my arms and legs than most boys on the Tanglewood Junior High football team.
I ran as fast as I could. My heart was racing and I could feel my side cramping up. Don’t look behind. I told myself. And so I kept running. I could hear movement behind me. Faster and faster until I felt excruciating pain on my ankle. I screamed and fell on the ground, allowing me to be face to face with my enemy. A python. It looked at me almost as if it knew me. And I stared right back. I could feel it’s hatred. I’ve done nothing to you. I said in my mind. The snake shook its head and moved behind me. I felt paralyzed. As the snake made its way around me, it hissed in my ear.
Nightmarish Realities Read More »
Addiction took our mother slowly, rocked her through it and sung her to sleep sunk deep into the mattress on her bed. When her back teeth fell out, she left them on the side of the bathtub. I was seven, and I kept them in a matchbox, the missing pieces
I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder when I was five. I have always struggled to interact with people because of this disorder, spending large amounts of time attempting to fix imperfections around me. I would lash out harshly at people around me if they touched me or my things, and
In the heart of a second-growth piney-woods jungle of southern Alabama, a region sparsely settled by backwoods blacks and Cajuns—that queer, half-wild people descended from Acadian exiles of the middle eighteenth century—stands a strange, enormous ruin.
I recently discovered the most amazing resource to help those dealing with mental illnesses and personality disorders, and I want to share what I’ve learned with as many others as possible. Since I know so many struggle with these problems, I hope you find this information useful. But first, I’d
Did you know that, once introduced to routine, our brains are capable of accepting it to the extent that when something changes, it doesn’t notice? The change could be small and harmless, an object there that wasn’t, or something moved to another room that you would normally duck around on
The Hallway Wasn’t Empty Read More »
It was the year 1992. Peter Ivankov’s life was never the same since then – firstly, because his home country had gone through a massive transformation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union the previous winter. Secondly, 1992 was the year Peter went blind. Early that year, Peter’s mother began
The Devil is in the Details Read More »
The sound of the car engine coughing and sputtering made my heart sink and my stomach knot. I always had a bad feeling about driving something that was twenty-three years of age. Even though it only had a hundred-thousand miles on it and had gotten me many places, I always
A Very Lonely Road Read More »
There’s this painting my wife loves, called “Death and Life”, by Klimt. I don’t know what she finds so fascinating about it. I made all the right noises when she showed me her beloved framed print when we were first dating, “oohing” and “ahhing” and making up some bullshit about warm
“Damn, Valentine shit already?” I asked my friend Gabriel as we were walking inside a Wal-Mart post Christmas. “Yeah, bro, and it’s still December. It’s like they’re completely ignoring the months in between the other months that have major holidays.” “True, true, annoys the shit out of me though, you
The Valentine House Read More »
We’d been doing civics for the past month. I was teaching second grade at Witherspoon Elementary, struggling to teach the meaning of Gettysburg and the Battle of Princeton to a bunch of eight year-olds, especially without giving a diatribe about the evils of slavery and making them bring that shit
I noticed it almost immediately. The phenomenon began one day while I was still an undergrad in college. My alarm went off, and I grudgingly let it ring for few seconds before ending it, yanking the covers off my body, and pulling myself out of bed. I had only gotten
“I don’t want to talk. Really. I just want to go to bed,” she said, taking out her earrings. She hustled by him without making eye contact, tossed the mail on the dresser, and lightly brushed him away. He reflexively glanced at the scattered envelopes. Bills. What’s that one from
The Spider in the Bed Read More »
Thomas sat in the courtroom, wringing his hands anxiously. His eyes darted from the judge, to the jury, to his father. He hated his father. He needed to be thrown in prison. It’s where he belongs. Where he’s always belonged. They called Thomas up to his place as a witness.
I can still hear them. In the stillness of the night as I wait for the grasp of sleep to take me, the sighs start flooding in from all directions. At first, they’re so low that I think I must be imagining them, but gradually, they get louder. Eventually, the
Day 0 As much as I despise having to type this, I’ve since come to terms with my wife’s suggestion. When I first told her of my assignment in the Arctic, she refused to let me leave. With time, she came to accept it, under one condition of course. She
All of Our Mistakes Are Never Forgotten Read More »
White. That was Jim’s world. The walls were white, the floor was white, the orderlies wore white. It was an upsetting, all-encompassing white which left him feeling a little dizzy. And there wasn’t much for him to do besides be absorbed in it. Occasionally, the sounds of crying or screaming
Madness and Mockingbirds Read More »
Home again after a difficult but very rewarding day of convincing people not to give up on the gift of life. Richard Burner often had to deal with pretty stubborn suicidal people, but so far he had always been able to open their eyes to see all the beauty in
The glare of the computer screen was the only light shining throughout the dimly lit room. Besides the sounds of quick, mechanical, keyboard clicking and an occasional finger tapping on a hardwood desk, the room was silent. A boy sat alone in the center of the room, running his hand
Tappy Crow: The Calling of the Crows Read More »
Have you ever wondered, “what would it be like to be dead?” I’ll tell you. It’s not fun. My name is Seraphina Kightin, and this is the story of my death. Two years ago, I was murdered on November 21, 2015. To me it felt like the best day of
Have you ever been influenced by clothing? I don’t mean confidence by looks. Have you ever been given more control than ever by an item, or a truth, or just a favorite shirt? Have you ever been influenced in the worst way? By showing the truth? The following is taken
Hoodie (The Hooded Man) Read More »
