Wes was nearly done writing a long letter he had been working on for two days. He put the pen to his lips and listened to the wind blow outside. Another cold and lonely Christmas had come and gone, but working on the letter gave him special purpose. He lived in a small storage shed […]
Ian’s brain had weak connections between the neurons that shaped thought. He never felt empathy or sympathy for anyone, no matter how badly that person suffered. He tortured the family cat when he was a little boy just to test his own indifference to pain. This didn’t bother him at all. It didn’t help that
Moose rose from his stool in Mother’s Saloon at last call and tossed four twenties on the bar, not knowing how much he owed and not caring. He strolled out the front door and onto Ocean Beach. He peeled off his t-shirt and tossed it in the sand, then lumbered toward the water in his
Scott Crockett woke up at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, threw on some warm clothes, and took his dog Jasper for a long walk in the darkness. Jasper plunged into a few snow drifts along the way, his tail wagging and his breath creating a fine mist in the chill morning air. They played fetch
Walt had just finished a three-day conference on education theory in Anaheim that was long on theory and short on substance, but this didn’t really matter to him. The only reason he attended was to get away from home for awhile and take in L.A. culture. He wanted to look around a little and see
Dennis woke up lying face-first in a field at noon. His car sat twenty feet away with the driver’s door open, engine running, and headlights on. A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels stood upright on the ground directly between him and the car, and the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” was playing on the