(This may be too late, but I kept working on it--a combo of the first and second prompt--or the first prompt inspired by the idea of doing the second in the future.) The Watcher When I think of movies from my youth, they have the same plot: there’s a girl in distress...

She must have stalked the soft grass of the inhabited oasis to sip the night water, must have wandered silently searching for the softest safest spot to queen her litter. Hunger must have driven her close to the tents of those who would stalk her for her hide, whose...

1) Be sure you have someone to take you home. Anesthesia and pain medicine will make it unsafe for you to drive or get home on your own. The Croatian brothers offered me mushrooms. Invited me to watch them fuck the groupie pressed between them. I giggled when Luka...

...or is it a rap? That was, hands down, the best writing I have seen in one of these workshops. Inspirational. I had to hold. myself. back. from. writing. gah. I'm finishing up a few comments and then I'll be hopping back into each story later today to see if there...

The house was a pretty dilapidated rancher, built in the 1960s or 1970s--I have never been good at estimating things like age or the time it takes to drive somewhere when you’re already late or how long it might take to end a marriage when the love part of it...

We cut our summer vacation short since a boy drowned in our pool while we were down in Miami swimming in my in-laws’ pool. Life can be a real motherfucker dot com. The kid was just some kid that lived in our neighborhood. My wife had seen him around, riding his...

Headlines Cooper skimmed the tape from the Associated Press, preparing for his broadcast. He frowned. Wasn’t there good news when he started this job? Weather. He could depend on weather for something less than terror. Winter storm continues The winter storm...

Something about Neil’s eyes said he’d seen more, too much more, sailing out of the harbor in the misty coastal Cornwall morning and while he wasn’t old and his tour boat was modern and sharp, the craggy rocks and tiny islands carved from mineral shorelines and high...

Holly leaned me against the cold industrial refrigerator in the just off-stage closet that seconded as a cafeteria bookstore, we worked together all year. Last day of school. In part, because I was senseless, her move on me felt like an act to be cruel…to be kind. She...

Connie balanced on an imaginary line along the Caribbean shore. Her foot slipped and her toes sank under the lapping water. She laughed, brushed a few strands of hair behind her ear and glanced around to see if anyone was watching. Slanted palm trees bristled in the...