“As I made the right onto her street, I started to get a creepy feeling, like something was wrong. I saw her walking towards my car, from the bushes at the side of the road. She was saying something, but I had the AC on and couldn’t hear. I rolled down the passenger window to hear her, and she started to shout ‘Look out!’”
“The first time I can remember being inside a church I was paid to attend. A high school classmate’s Baptist church wanted a brass quartet to perform an Easter service, and I was asked to play trombone. It was fun, if a little weird. We were positioned in the upper choir loft at the back of the church, so we weren’t visible to the congregation. It was an ideal perspective for witnessing some strange and new customs.”
“I stole a Danish off the breakfast table. I didn’t want the whole thing; I just wanted the jelly in the middle. I took it when my mother wasn’t looking and then snuck into the family room to eat it. I carefully tore it in half and ate the dollop of cherry, then stuffed the doughy parts under the sofa.”
Some species are simply natural enemies. The mongoose and the viper, for example, or the football player and the band geek. There doesn’t have to be sense to it, it’s simply the way the world works.
“It’s late, long after midnight. Through my open window I can hear a train whistle in the distance, the pitch bent into a mournful wail as it rumbles toward its destination. I like it; it suits my mood. After all, it’s my birthday.”
“My instructor for American History class was a genial older gentleman named Hiram Cox: a veteran of three wars, chock full of patriotic fervor and good intentions, unbearably predictable, and utterly unprepared to deal with a gifted class full of smart-ass kids.”
I was up late again, sitting at the computer trying to get some writing done until long after midnight. I was having a little trouble with my focus. The ideas just weren’t coming to me, probably because of the day. Even though I’m well into middle age and not at all religious, I was working [...]
