The Micrometer Adjustment
Leigh had been a brewer for eleven years, and in that time he had learned that reliability was a compliment people gave you before they…
New stories
Newest first. Some are free to read in full; the rest open with a free preview.
Stories
Ghost Route Letters
The first letter arrived on a Tuesday, which I remember because Tuesdays are dead at the salon and I had time to stand at the window and…
Float and Yield
Christina Porter had photographed a lot of strange assignments in her thirty-eight years behind a camera, but she was pretty sure this was…
Deep Brine
I want to tell you about the strangest Saturday of my life, but you have to know I'm thirty-four years old and I still make bad decisions…
The Depot Girl
Moira Tomlinson stood at the entrance of the old bus depot and asked herself, for the third time, what exactly she thought she was doing.
Letters from the Wild Garlic
**Letter One** Dear Calvin, I'm writing this from the hotel lobby in Lamentin, which has the kind of furniture that pretends to be antique…
The Tape Recorder
I woke up on the floor of an engine room, which is not a sentence I ever expected to type, let alone live.
The Heart Key
The mud was everywhere.
The Missing Groom's Map
Pauline had been driving the dirt road for twenty minutes before she saw the lake, and when it finally appeared through the trees, silver…
The Prop Master's Wife
The streetlight outside Greenwood Taxidermy had been flickering since before I got the job, and it was still flickering the night I drove…
The Cobbler's Lesson
The storm hit the law firm around four in the afternoon, right when I was halfway through the conference room carpet with the extractor…
The Corkscrew Bid
Every wedding I've ever been to, I end up feeling like the furniture.
The Slaughterhouse Wife
The gate was the same one he remembered, which was strange, because Derrick had spent seven years telling himself he remembered nothing…
The Dare Exchange
The reunion was held in a barn outside the village, a big stone thing the hosts had rented for the weekend.
Horsehair and Mustard
Okay so, the Mustard Festival in Urnäsch.
Ballast and Bread
Gail had been in Caherdaniel for fourteen months by then, and most of that time she had spent telling herself that starting over at…
The Hop Ties
The fairgrounds came into view right around the bend where Highway 12 dips past the water tower, and I felt my shoulders drop about two…
Slam Dunk
The mic squealed when I set it back in the stand.
The Sauna Letters
My name is Sally Farrell, I'm forty-four years old, and I have been dating Ken Carlisle for six years now.
Closing Time at the Hopper
My name is Samuel Browne, I am fifty-five years old, and I have spent thirty years cleaning the same processing plant on the same dairy…