Forty of us ran counterclockwise in a giant circle on the field. My helmet squeezed against my cheekbones. “Sprint!” the coach yelled. The circle sped up like a carnival ride. I tried to sprint but my legs dragged, exhausted. It was late summer and I was about to enter my sophomore year of high school. As …
I yanked open my refrigerator door, anticipating a much-needed wave of cool air to give me relief. It was deep in the summer of 2009 in Boulder, Colorado and I lived in a condo with no air conditioning. What it did have was a weird quirk: when I opened my patio door for a breeze, …
The barbell pressed into my shoulders and spine, choking my trap muscles, waiting for them to quiver and die and for my spine to shred and disintegrate. Like a simple-minded ancestor of the Terminator, it felt no pity or remorse. Gravity pulled it toward the center of the earth, but my body stood in the …
I stared at the phone. My torso felt like an ice box. Maybe I could weasel my way out of this? It was a stupid idea. Nobody wanted to talk to me. I reached for my phone and pressed on the digit buttons. The phone emitted tone after tone like a dying robot. More than …
In the early winter of 2012, I stood in front of my condo building and stared at my parked car. Someone had scrawled on my driver’s side window in burgundy gunk. Vandalism? I lived in Aurora, Colorado, which has a crime problem, but the area felt safe. A neighbor was a meth addict, but the …
I gasped, my throat emitting a sound like when you press your ear to a wall and hear water rushing through pipes. Haauuuh! It was 1:18PM. I was in my bed and my alarm clock had to be wrong. Had to be. Maybe the AM and PM were mixed up? No, the sun shone through …
It only took a few moments before the rumbling began. It was Saturday, the 3rd of October. Since Wednesday, my wife and I had been in California, visiting a client. That night, we ate at a restaurant in downtown Pleasanton. Like many other small towns, they closed traffic to their main street in the evenings …
Sounds rumbled from just outside my closed bedroom door at 1AM. Thump… thump… thump. It was spring 2015 and I’d been living in downtown Baltimore for a few months. When the riots had raged, friends asked me what the city was like. “Well, I’d sit in the living room hearing police and ambulance sirens outside …
“Hi. Golden Police. Get out.” I sat on a park bench in Golden, Colorado as the sun set, gnats barrel-rolled above the grass, and a cop yelled at kids rafting in Clear Creek, just beyond the “Creek Closed” sign. I was reading a book called How To Write Short. It was the perfect timing for …