Short Stories
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Lot
Understand that El was different back then. He was one demon in a host of equally unpredictable and bloodthirsty demons, the one who’d attached himself to my family.
Most of the time we knew how to deal with demons. We kept them glutted with sacrifice blood and they left us alone. El was merely a little more baroque than others in his directions for daubing and sprinkling that blood around his altar. (Read full story)
The Handsome Man
The handsome man took stock of his life on his thirtieth birthday and, while he’d been successful in his career and assembled a wide circle of friends, he was dissatisfied. He’d made it all the way to this age without ever sustaining a relationship for longer than a few weeks—a month and a half at most—and he was lonely.
He knew his problem: he was a compulsive talker. (read full story)
A Chicken-and-Egg Story
Melle was hatched in an incubator tray along with a few dozen other chicks, fuzzy little Nerf balls piled together. It was cramped in there—she was always being jostled, shouldered out of the way, or even trampled when some other chick got impatient of pushing through the crowd and tried to climb overtop it instead. (read full story)
Straight: An Orthographical Fable
The Straight Line concept arose from an interminable discussion on posting and commenting etiquette on one of the big political blogs. On several occasions recently a congressman had ventured to have his staff write posts in his name, the comments had gotten heated, and the politician had been attacked with ads that quoted the most incendiary of these. (Read full story)
MAUL: The Fight Channel
9:00 a.m. ROMAN GLADIATOR 2000 [rebroadcast] The original is still the best. Watch as today’s toughest warriors battle it out with the real weapons of ancient Rome: trident and net, sword and shield. Give the thumbs-up or down by texting and wait for a death blow you’ll swear is real. (Read full story)
Other People
My withdrawal from the subway started with my iPod. I wore it to drown out other riders’ chatter, and when I listened to music rather than podcasts I usually carried a book to read, too. I even bought a pair of noise-canceling headphones so I didn’t have to hear anything at all outside my own head. (Read full story)
NAD
After years of trying, Max sold a screenplay. It was sort of a sci-fi comedy in which all the silicone breast implants in the world became sentient and possessed their owners. Finally a producer had appreciated the potential in showing giant-breasted women first manipulating powerful men and then, once they were discovered, battling in the streets with a band of natural-breasted heroines of various cup sizes. (Read full story)
Esau
My brother Jacob and I went to work in my family’s restaurant the moment my father, Big Ike, decided it was safe. He had a two-part test. First each of us had to carry a saucepan full of water from one end of the dining room to the other, using only one hand, without rushing and without spilling. Then we each had to cut an onion precisely in half with one stroke of a heavy knife. Once our wrists had grown strong enough for those things, he judged we could handle the rest. (Read full story)
Ghost Story
The ghost showed up the very first night. Levin had gotten a good deal on the house because of her, so he wasn’t surprised. He didn’t usually try to get deals on things; he was Jewish and hated playing into stereotypes. (Read full story)
Great Tits
In the spring of his second year, Peter split from the mixed flock of tits and sparrows in whose company he’d survived the winter, and returned to a wood not far from where he’d fledged. For a couple of days he tried out his song, two notes and two syllables, the second lower than the first and slurring at the end, something like his own name: “Pe-ter! Pe-ter!” But he’d arrived too late. (Read full story)
More stories:
The Pebble and the Mustard Jar
The Truck Across From My Apartment is Not a Metaphor
The Ice House and the Glass House
9:00 a.m. ROMAN GLADIATOR 2000 [rebroadcast] The original is still the best. Watch as today’s toughest warriors battle it out with the real weapons of ancient Rome: trident and net, sword and shield. Give the thumbs-up or down by texting and wait for a death blow you’ll swear is real.
10:00 a.m. SAW