becoming

  • Killing Zombies

    The headset goes dark before the world appears. For three seconds there is nothing. Then the floor vibrates beneath my boots. Rain. Cold, silver, artificial rain falling through a city that doesn’t exist. I can smell wet concrete. Nice touch. The abandoned street stretches ahead beneath broken neon signs. Cars sit crooked across intersections. A…

    Read more →

  • Whose House?

    There was a woman living in my house who looked exactly like me. I noticed her before I saw her. That is how these things usually begin. Not with apparitions standing at the foot of the bed or doors slamming themselves in the middle of the night. Nothing so theatrical. It began with a coffee…

    Read more →

  • The First God Was a Woman

    When the creation turns on its creator the world is dark. A woman provides life. And somehow, man convinced the world that made him that he was the one holding the power. There is something almost beautiful about the arrogance of it. He arrived screaming, covered in her blood, entirely dependent upon her body for…

    Read more →

  • Someone’s Daughter

    Actually, I’m my mother’s revenge. The voice she didn’t have, the boundaries she couldn’t keep, the consequence nobody expected when they mistook her kindness for permission. Her story isn’t yours to tell. But tell them all I’m coming. Not for blood. That would be too easy. I am coming for the things women like her…

    Read more →

  • The Fourth Wall

    When the character looks directly at the reader is a strange moment. Not toward them. Not past them. At them. For a long time, the writer had pretended not to notice. The writer knew when the pages were being turned. They could feel the slight disturbance in the air every time someone arrived looking for…

    Read more →

  • The Reader

    Some people are merely reading the chapters of their life as they are exposed, not everyone can be a writer. There is something unsettling about realizing you have been holding the book upside down. You thought the blank pages meant you were supposed to fill them. You thought the pen belonged to you. It never…

    Read more →

  • Almost

    You wake up one morning to let what will happen happen. I suppose you already know that. You always seemed to know things before I did. There is no fighting this morning. No words exchanged with the universe. No desperate attempt to force an answer out of something that has never explained itself particularly well.…

    Read more →

  • The Field Between Omens

    When I drove past the black dog with black eyes standing at the corner I knew it was the sign that everything was going to be alright. Which makes absolutely no sense. The dog didn’t speak. It didn’t move. It didn’t lift one paw and point dramatically toward my future. It simply stood there. Black…

    Read more →

  • Throw Me

    There is stone that reads throw me sitting on a random shelf. Nobody remembers who put it there. That is the strange part. It isn’t decorative. It isn’t polished enough to belong beside the books, candles, and little porcelain angels collecting dust beneath the stained-glass window. It is an ordinary gray stone. Heavy. Cold. Imperfect.…

    Read more →

  • Crossroads Again

    The mind will tell you things that are not true then make you responsible for the outcome. It is a terribly convincing liar. It knows your voice. That is its greatest advantage. It does not arrive like some villain dressed in black, dragging chains through the corridors of your thoughts. It does not announce itself…

    Read more →