No Signs

No Signs

    When Judy was taking another sip from the bottle, the car swerved to the right. Marcus grabbed the wheel, steered all the way to the left. Several minutes later, Judy pulled over and left the car. After staring at the valley beneath them, she crawled...
All Our Sins and Griefs to Bare

All Our Sins and Griefs to Bare

  The minister is at the Days of Jesus before the girl arrives. He is in his office, waiting. His sermon is written and placed on the pulpit and he waits for the girl to arrive as he has all summer. She comes in the side door and takes the stairs to the basement...
Attractive Nuisance

Attractive Nuisance

    A week after the fourth of July, my dog Speedy nipped an eight-year old kid who wandered onto my property from the subdivision across the way. Speedy was a Shepherd-Husky mix and normally pretty docile, so I thought the kid must have been teasing him,...
Date

Date

  Fuji Bay in Sioux City, slow Monday night, and The Bachelorette’s on TV. She’s stopped on her way back from the airport, in an attempt to self-soothe with sushi. Earlier in the day, she said goodbye to The Beloved in a different airport, then dozed on and off...
Flame

Flame

    Seventh inning, score tied, and Shaw leans back in his favorite chair and begins another beer. I’ve already had my usual three and have turned down his offer of a fourth. Since I got here he hasn’t said a word about anything but the ballgame, one we’ve...
Wanting

Wanting

  Maya Lang was the winner of the 2017 Neil Shepard Prize in Fiction     Gaurav Gupta set his saxophone down and crossed the herringbone floors, pausing at the threshold to hear the women laugh gaily, Lilly’s the loudest of all. It was shrill, in its...