We have something in common, a fellow I talk to now and then. We’re about the same age and perhaps the only ones in the diner who think our past lives are interesting. So when the two o...

For some nervous wrecks a pill or two might help. For others

Fred jerks back in his recliner as his wife puts him on the spot and asks his opinion about a dress she bought on sale at a fancy place for a great price…

Every once in awhile over the last 40 years Ralph wondered what might have happened to the guy who had moved in with the mother

The stench came first, the young man remembers. It was as if someone had grabbed him by the ankles, turned him upside down

Fifty years ago Jane got on a plane and flew away without saying good-bye. Her parents took her, I know.

He publishes poems by writers who find no publishers elsewhere. They suffer rejection and he gives them hope.

When Bernie wakes at 6 a.m. there’s a piano on his chest and Erroll Garner’s playing “Mist… Sinatra’s on the headboard improvising lyrics

I look in the mirror and I’m not… Where did I go? I don’t know so I look around and see my wife with the dogs and kids. Not one of them sees me.

Unable to sleep Bill watches preachers on TV after midnight. The preachers warn the Saved Satan is coming to get them. Bill wonders why preachers do this…

“Damn the vernal equinox! Full speed ahead!” is all that Cootie Murphy would ever say when he sat on the last stool at the end of the bar in The Stag & Doe Inn. He wouldn’t say it very ...

It’s time to leave the man alone. He’s getting old, his wife says. He’s really slowing down. He’s always been a man occupied with one thing

Harry and Grace had a carousel of marriage while it lasted. There were arguments galore and children by the score or so the neighbors thought

The poor are hungry in America. Their numbers would fill stadiums throughout this prosperous land. And feral cats are running wild, eating songbirds in our yards,

Outside, the still of crickets. Inside, petals of a cold sore foliate,