Paul had an idea for a new art installation called “Man Perpetually Falling Down Stairs.” He’d come up with the concept last Tuesday when...

Three little pigs lived by the sea. You know how this goes. The first little pig built its house of lumber. The second little pig built...

Whenever the bluebird of befuddlement lit upon our little backyard feeder, we found ourselves without much in the way of coherent speech....

He sometimes confused torsion  and tension . Climatic  and climactic . Centripetal  and centrifugal . Corporal  and corporeal . Viscous...

I can’t say I truly believed that Brian’s dead father was speaking to him through the napkin dispenser at Cattle Mutilations. But Brian...

We’ve lost the plot. It happens. Plots get lost all the time; it’s not that unusual. But no one around here seems to have any idea how it...

In the hills, in the high and distant hills, they’d hit a big pothole and blown out a tire. No spare. Now what? he said. They sat for a...

The music was sad, so obviously we were supposed to make this whole scene sad. But the problem? We didn’t feel sad. Like, at all. Quite...

A solar flare  today, said the newscaster, who then said nothing else. The newscaster stared blankly into the camera. The staring went on...

Cheryl and I did this thing where she’d hand me a beverage that she’d prepared, I’d take a big drink, and then, a few seconds later,...

Everything has a cost  was his line. His one  line. Was it a great line? No. It was an OK line, perfectly respectable, nothing special....

The Mars rover had collected some Martian rocks and brought them back to Earth. Five rocks, all five of them 100% from Mars. But the...

Of course, my daughter had questions about the giant extraterrestrial spaceship hovering over our city. Her questions ranged from the...

Marvin’s parents were beside themselves. He wants to be an artist, Marvin’s father said to the administrator of their account with Your...

The mountains. The mountains were big. The mountains had snow on them. The mountains were nice to look at. The mountains filled me with...

Steve would compare just about everything to a Godzilla. That violent thunderstorm last night was a Godzilla. Traffic this morning was a...

Jugglers thought they were safe. They were supremely confident about that, as only jugglers can be. “Who wants to see a robot juggle...

A haunted room in a regular house isn’t all that scary, really. You just stay out of that room. But what if the haunted room is where all...

One day Hank sat down to write a parable. He was in the mood to write a parable. He didn’t know why. The previous day he had written five...

Right before she began filming, the director said, “Remember, you love those bananas. You love them so much.” “OK,” I said. I readied the...