My Grandpa was a rancher, and a hunter. Mom, Eloise, always had access to fresh beef, from her sisters, and she went hunting for elk and moose every year. Our freezer brimmed with white packages that were labeled with things like “CHUCK,” “T” and “SIRLOIN.” After I left home, I was glad to not live exclusively off of steak anymore, and it was awhile before I craved one again. In 1992, I heard an argument against beef rais...

A businessman married a stripper, and they had two kids. The kids were in school, and she got tired of sitting around the house while her husband was at work. It made her feel restless, and useless. Boredom settled on her mind, as a dark cloud of angry depression. The cloud filled the house, and soon the businessman was depressed as well. They weren’t a well matched couple. She wanted adventure. She was wildly expressive...

Professor Bachusrand wrote, “=42” on the wall. He stopped and looked at what he had written. Then he rappelled down the inside wall of the tall tower, where he had been working on his equation. When he reached the bottom, the old lizard celebrated by running around in circles, jumping up and down, and singing. “The answer is 42 . . . the answer is 42. Whoo-Hoo the answer is 42,” sang Professor Bachusrand. Students and fac...

Mr. Aghorian, a draconian teacher, tapped his claws on the desk impatiently as he watched the kids taking their seats. The claws left deep dents in the oak. He took a moment to straighten his tie, and brush his vest free of wrinkles. “Hurry up, sit,” he said. The kids scrambled to get into their desks; one stepping on another; there was a little pushing. They sat straight-backed and wide-eyed. Aghorian was their favorite...

Whose woods are these? I guess, I’ll never know. His house might be in Portland . . . or Seattle. He wouldn’t care to know That I pedal past his trees And marvel at the way they grow Line after golden line of leaves March toward the paper-mill Over the hill, to become a bill Or a flier that gets thrown away It seems such a disgrace To force chaos from a forest And grow cottonwoods Just for waste.

Chatting with Sarah, before work, was a nice way to start the day. She was short, from Louisiana, had horses, and sometimes drove her husband’s rumbly truck to work. The other supply clerks started heckling her about her “girlfriend,” me. She gave one of them a shove, and got dismissed for violence in the workplace. The guys hassled me, saying I was flirting, whenever I’d talk to any female. Looking in the direction of a...

The brown eyes steadily watched Eloise from under a plain wooden chair. There was a silent growl filling the border patrol office. Eloise stood at the counter and filled out paperwork. Several uniformed men talked about the Cathoulian in Spanglish. With a word here, and a word there, she began to understand that the dog was sentenced to die, because it attacked an American, where it was supposed to attack only Mexicans. A...

A lil' ol' man and a lil' ol' woman in a lil' ol' house with a lil' ol' yard with flowers in the back and a lil' ol' cat and a lil' ol dog  and a rooster who crowed Cock-a-doodle-doo and the lil' ol woman screeched to the lil' ol man "Are you hungry yet?" and the lil' ol man mumbled something. They must be happy.

A red carpet, a stained ceiling, a gallon of white paint, and a sleeping baby were the factors that converged to cause Eloise to lose her colorful vocabulary. With the baby sleeping, she took the opportunity to do some quick painting in the next room. It's a very small room, so there's no need to fuss with covering things and putting some paint in a smaller cup. I know I shouldn't set this gallon of white paint on top of...

This morning I saw those black ducks, the ones that eat fish, through my bedroom window. We seem to have lots of them, but a few years ago I never saw them. Pointy beaked things? Yea.That's a fish-duck, or a cormorant, the kind of bird the Japanese used to catch fish. I used to go duck hunting with Joe. Joe's mom was from Germany and had a thick rolling accent. I didn't like plucking and messing with the ducks I shot, so...

After a lifetime of mining gold and silicon from asteroids, the cube is ready. John Sanders, from Intel, flipped the switch. The super-cooled cube hanging in the vacuum of space hummed when the solar generated current pulsed through its paths of gold. The properties of quantum particles vibrate and stand still within its glass walls. The hundred-mile by hundred-mile cube shimmered in the sunlight. What does it do? It thin...

The first time I saw April, we were going door to door in a shabby Hispanic neighborhood, telling people to “repent or burn,” “Jesus saves,” “get saved” and “come to church.” April made me nervous because her eyes had a crazy, buggy glaze. It didn’t help the matter that she was talking incoherently about stabbing someone and miming it out. When I ran into her again, eight years later, I was impressed by how much she had c...

Maybe, he's gay. Or a hermit in a hovel in India. Maybe, he went out for cigarettes, and was hit by a bus.Was he ever born? My church friend told me - God has someone for me. My pastor said - There's no such thing as a soul mate. My bar friend said - It's no big thing, just go home with somebody. My mom pouts whenever I mention anyone. Maybe I'm too picky, or crazy, or messed up. Maybe it's all me, a blindness, a bitterne...

My mom left me at my cousin’s house and went hunting with her sister and brother-in-law, Kathy and Don. My mom and my aunt are tribal members, so hunting is loosely regulated, but Don isn't a member, and shouldn't have gone with them. It was very late before the adults came home again. Large snowflakes were swirling from the dark sky. My mom wasn’t with Don and Kathy. They dropped her off at the hospital before they left...

If I were China …and I had power …I think about this thought a lot. If I were China and I conquered the world …and things went the way I planned …nevermind, I sound like a comic book villain now. …but if I had my way All the factories that put cows in boxes would go away And the plains would be for bison and wolves …and for the cowboys brave enough to live there If I were China, I’d be mean too Back in 1900 they imported...