Blood Stories on Audible

A scale: Barry White on one end, Betty White on the other. My voice? Thankfully, it lands closer to Barry's.

Have a listen to my story collection Blood Stories, read by me.

Scraps: Cut from The Wobble

The delete key isn't an enemy. And not everything can stay in. The Wobble, coming out 3/14/16. Just without this section.

***

Tuna, Lilly said, terrifies me.

They’d rented a car, were driving upstate for the wedding of a couple neither Philip nor Lilly particularly liked.  

Tuna? Philip asked, driving.  How they got onto the topic of things that frightened them, he didn’t know.  But somehow, they had.

Yeah, she said, the fish.  She flipped through a fashion magazine.  Have you ever seen one, Oscar?

In the grocery store, he said.  Or on a sandwich.    

I mean whole, she said.  Pure nightmares.  She tossed the magazine to the floor of the car.  They’re huge with razorlike fins on their back, and tiny, sharp teeth.  And they can swim up to fifty miles per hour.  Terrifying, she said, then leaned back and closed her eyes.  God, she said, I don’t want to go to this wedding.  This is going to be miserable.  They’re going to be miserable couple.  Why were we even invited? she asked.  It’s not like we’re close friends.  

So what else scares you, he asked, aside from tuna? 

She thought a moment.  Immortality, she said.  

Philip laughed.  Really? he asked. I think it’d be nice being immortal.  Living forever.

She curls her legs up under her, trying to get comfortable in the passenger’s seat.  No, she said, yawning, it’d be horrible.  

How so?

You’d get bored.

But just think of all the things you could do.

Well, you’d eventually run out of things to do.  Then you’d be left with an eternity to live, she said, and nothing to live for.

Scraps: Dogs of Athens

The piece started strong. Then it stopped being so strong. So I stopped too.

***

A tooth. A severed finger. A tuft of hair. The table is littered. 

Zander hacks out a damp laugh that dapples the floor with blood. 

“Something funny?” Alex asks. He stands at the window, staring at the dawn stained street.  

A sharp, cold spring seeps through the open window, carrying dust and the scent of wet earth. The town is quiet. The people sleep or sit in dim rooms with bitter coffee, trying to wake. 

 Cousins, Zander and Alex look identical. 

 Or they did an hour ago.  Zander’s face is a mess of bruises and cuts. His left eye is swollen shut. It pains Alex to look at him.  

Zander’s wrist are bound to the chair with the phone cord. His was the first phone in the neighborhood, something he was proud about—something he told no one of.  Official use. Government use.  The whole neighborhood knew. No other apartment had wires running out the window to the pole.