I know my name is Victorio.

A balloon-popper ran loose in the Party Store. Furk, the Assistant Manager, hunched over the blurry security monitors, his wet blue pupils chasing chubby kids in flip-flops through the aisles of our …

You had explained it so many times, but I didn’t want to pretend again to understand how those cockroaches birthed live babies. I was thinking about the bugs that hit our windshield, the ones whose …

Dr. Pendergraph tells me there’s something wonky with my rods and cones. He says this as I stare into his great white machine with the tiny hot air balloons shuttering before my eyes; I always …

I asked Grandpa how he got the silver medal he’s so proud of, and he said he got it for shooting a Northern Viet bastard right in the face. He said the Northern soldier was on top of another …

A polar bear travels two hundred miles and arrives in Iceland. It climbs onto the shore with a great lumbering. It is an accident of travel. It is an animal in a country with no animals like him. I …

One night my mother dreamed that she turned into a large, white bird. She was standing naked before a narrow, tall mirror. She still had only one breast, the scar on the left side no longer a zipper …

I want to tell you about an album I’ve been listening to a lot lately. The Best of: My Younger Thinking. Side A is one long toddler snarl with a fiddle whimpering low in the mix. Side B shows a …

Every other Wednesday evening, the Northwest District Small Group of the Mendota Heights Church of the Holy Redeemer held a Bible study at one of the attendees’ homes. Starting at six p.m., they …

The speck of dirt lived on the floor of the apartment, and somehow had, until now, avoided the broom. It was, after all, just one speck, and all its brethren had spilled out ahead of it and been …

But Penelope is waving at something over Janis’s shoulder. Janis turns and sees three people walking out of a clump of bare ash trees towards the house, which squats on top of a rocky hill behind …

“Patty,” the man called out. “Patty, I’ve been looking for you.” I stopped what I was doing and said hello. The man leaned on his crutches and smiled. I liked the man because he was a …

The snow was a wildcat that night, unpredictable and bright. You sat in the passenger seat, one hand screwed to the handle for safety. You should have been driving, but you called yourself a …

Morning comes and he pauses beside my bed. He struggles to breathe, his breath brushing my face. Without opening my eyes, I make a space where he can curl up in my arms. I barely feel him, …

Big Al is in the house and he's drunk. His work boots thud across the worn carpet. "Tanya! Tanya!" He thrashes from room to room, opening doors on no one. He is a bear trying to shake off the snapped …

He wasn’t a particularly good Dad (though we weren’t great kids, either, loud and ravenous, always asking for pizza or pocket change), but the holiday didn’t call for distinctions of merit.

And so it goes, day after day, night after night, as I rattle these torn and cheapened canvases around the dim and dusty byways of this once great nation. My tent is always full. Some come to weep, …

I was walking to Higher Grounds when the first one fell from the sky. A whirring sound preceded him so I was able to side-step to avoid a direct blow. He hit the ground at a distressing angle. Kevin …

Tomorrow she’ll get up early, ride so long that she’ll be bicycling in her dreams. But as she approaches the house, she wonders, what has she changed by spending this money? Nothing. Just another …