This is a work of fiction. It starts with a… no, it doesn’t start with anything. Nature, or more precisely the nature of us, cannot be sharpened to pinpoints of causality. That is not the way of things. The way of things is blunt sunlight, it is wobbly driving rain, it is an accidental wind…Continue readingThe Scaffold and the Ivy
This is a work of fiction. Your dropped your pills at a show. Their quantity gave me pause. Like, not so many that you’re dealing, but not so few that you’re not relying on them for something. The Curravax bag didn’t make things any clearer. For a while I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Saturday…Continue readingFound Pills
This is a work of fiction. It was given Honorable Mention for the As Seen On [] writing contest for Urban Omnibus in 2016. I am the meanest mother in Kings. Other Method Man, they call me. But even that’s a short sell, because I don’t just De Niro that shit. I make it real.…Continue readingLights Up, Bitches
This is a work of fiction. This article was retrieved from the (pre)archives of Forward Health Quarterly Review, Issue 31, October 2032. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Anaya v. Lacey decision eleven months prior, all articles authored by algorithms are no longer considered intellectual property and must therefore be made available to the public prior…Continue readingRiskBands
This is a work of fiction. We sit across from each other. It’s an obtuse but intimate angle, bisecting the corner of the table so that my knees touch her dangling toes, and our faces are both within grabbing radius of the other’s arms. I realize the position is reserved only for these situations, third…Continue readingA Morning with Galen
It’s a miracle of psycho-evolution and a sobering truth of human squeamishness that everyone– from hobos to kings, from soldiers to bakers– has their safe mental crevice to crawl into when they defecate. Some remember their parents’ kitchen, some summon the the picture of a deer drinking from a brook, others hum the Bottleneck Blues… Me,…Continue readingNuclear Lake
This is a work of fiction. “Jackie, that’s my daughter’s name. She just left for college in Europe. Wasn’t half a decade before we were best buddies, her in middle school, me working 20 hour weeks. That’s the time every kid starts to beat her dad at everything. Always been giving her sports to play…Continue readingClocks [excerpt]
Already some time ago I discovered the joy of observational freehand drawing. Aside from benefiting my mentality (I can count it as meditation) and its use as a learning tool as I observe the physical world, drawing opens channels to engage the people around me. The cold stoicism of modern strangers melts away when they…Continue readingShoot the Cartoonist
Look what happens. I told Sasha he could help to renovate the house. From one immigrant to another, I told him. Let us make it like old times in Sankt Peterburg Arkhitekturnyi Universitet, our nicknames for professors, the long nights in winter and in spring, the Noviye Godyi and Easters, sunlight in the skylight at…Continue readingThe Architect Gets Grandfathered [excerpt]
Several years ago, for Rod Knox’s seminar on daydreaming, I wrote a short story called I&M— a dialogue between two unnammed characters, about philosophical questions, inspired by Before Sunrise. This is how it started. I: So, what’s new with you? M: Many things. Actually, it’s lucky I bumped into you, because I’ve been thinking about…Continue readingFinish what I farted
