I heard a car pull up and stop behind me. Looking back, I watched a woman emerge slowly from the driver’s side door. Coming around to the curbside, she slid her hand along the car’s body, looking as if she were feeling her way. When she made it all the way around the passenger side…

To help me choose my route, I’ve got a magazine-sized Rand-McNally road atlas as my ready reference, though so far I’ve used it more to tell me where I’ve been than to suggest where I might go. The beach where I almost got swept out to sea may have been Cannon Beach, but I wonder…

Writers, feel free to add on to any one of the following choices. There are three choices. Don’t forget to include the preceding parts of the story when you post your your addition. There will be three more chances to add on to the pieces: This month, January, and February. This advance notice is given…

So I woke up not dead, and proceeded from the church back to Dunkin’ Donuts, the place that would become a permanent reference point for me, a little bit like a compass, or a kind of mauka-makai directional bearing. The day I left Madison for good, I intentionally drove past that place, that payphone, for…

“So what’re you guys up to?” I ask the two tee-shirt-and-jeans teen-agers who wander into my camp and stop twenty yards in front of me with my hood up. The taller one carries a .22 caliber rifle, pointed sanely at the ground. It’s early in the morning. My car won’t start. Cranking it any more…

Story Number Two * * * * * Nighthawks – Chapter 1 When you wish hard enough for something, you might get it. It was getting late, and I moved over to a barstool to tell her that I was in the mood for her. She looked at her watch, took my hand, turned it…

for pc tell me again why the rain is wrong for us to walk in, uncovered now why your words curve waves around me life preserver (render reality illusion) tasting the rumor of the moon we savor honesty tonight hard each taking in large bites – the shadow slant (scent) of the pikake gardenia the…

* * * * * Story Number Three * * * * * (Part One) “So what da buggah said?” Rudy the barber asks me. “Some bullshit about Denise and Chris.” I’m waiting for a haircut. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Christopher Andaya enter. He’s dark, looks real Hawaiian. “Chris, whas’up?”…

I’m headed south on this fading afternoon of my very first, quite eventful, day on the road. I’ve travelled a couple hundred miles, seen some country, got a haircut, probably destroyed my cherry Chevy. Maybe the smartest thing I could do right now is to find the quickest way back to I-5 and head north…

Part One When you wish for something hard enough, you just might get it. Then comes the part about how hard you thought about what happens next, as in being careful what you wish for. Jiminy Cricket says nothing about which star you should wish upon, nor about possible evil consequences of choosing poorly. How…