He told me he was in the process of determining the next stage of his life.

There was a frog in our house.

We’d thought he only taxidermized celebrities’ pets. But then we saw him crossing the yard carrying Mickey Rooney.

She smiles and waves at me. I return her smile, mine more faint than hers, and I see her catching sight of something or someone behind me.

A couple was making love outdoors while a grizzly bear watched—it was a tv show— and I thought, this reminds me of me.

Even in death, I would make a showing of my conscientiousness. I would step into a black trash bag, first removing my heels to avoid a snag. I’d put a note on the outside of a second bag before pulling it over my head.  “Please do not open; call the police.”

The water witch said that if I cut my hair and killed the prince and his new bride she would turn my legs back into fins and I could go home. I didn’t have to think about it very hard.

When I was dead, I returned to my father’s house, an old farmstead in Northwestern Ohio, and I stood alone in the gravel drive, satisfied to see that the house was just as I remembered it—small and gray, rising on a plot of land west of a moonlit apple orchard.

The old man kicked us out after the fight.

The Class of 1953 Tachikawa Air Base Bride School girls were fertile, well-fed and rested.

"Me, all scatter-shotted words I tried out in the air ..."

But the shortstop is still bothered.

So obviously I couldn’t do it. She would have known it was real.

Beautiful, the flat-forever fields of Wisconsin as I barrel on through flurries, gobbling cheese curds, until, through the fluff, the end appears.

Our Man, as we now call him.

It’s really Freudian, that. Turning a doctor into a parent for a few minutes. That’s why Maeve likes him.

I Googled things that bond people. Google said trauma.

Ken pounded out three novelty songs on his busted up acoustic guitar, looking like a knock-off Daniel Johnston.

‘Le Trou Normand,’ I said to the Garçon, winking knowingly at him.

“And no one knows in what guise the end of the familiar will arrive.”- Joy Williams, “Cats and Dogs” 
 

Dale-Anne has heard a noise in her backyard, loud enough to pull her up from sleep.

Within 1-3 weeks, the body will begin to actively decay. This is when the organs, muscles, and skin will liquify. The hair, bones, and cartilage will remain.

Gunderson could hear the vehicle’s noisy carping from eight blocks away, like a herd of wild trashcans rolling down the street.

Oh, Anya!

The show literally fuckin has to go on.

Your fingers began peeling the fruit, tossing orange scraps among the dirty straw. In the right light, they could have passed for blood.