“I couldn’t decide, the shoelaces seem so wrong,” the daughter said, holding up two pairs of shoes so similar the difference was indistinguishable. “Mom was always so picky.” As she talks her voice cracks. “Everything had to be perfect from the tips of her toes.” The daughter starts gesturing wildly. “She wouldn’t want to be seen in public unless…” The tears come. Fat and ugly. Leaving block line...

There is a man sleeping in my son’s bed

Dark hairy legs hanging off the bed

Where’s the crib?

There is a man sleeping in my son’s bed

Sharp jawline and morning stubble

Where’s the toy razor and bubble bath?

There is a man sleeping in my son’s bed

Muscled arms crossed over his head

Where’s the baby fat?

There is a man sleeping in my son’s bed

“Good Morning, mom,” he says, his voice s...

“Fight!”

You watch the girl for the slightest hint of movement.

Her hair is brown.

There is always a tell in these demonstrations that gives you a way past their defenses.

“Well, get on with it,” the general’s voice is rough with annoyance. He’d ordered her to incapacitate this one.

She puts her fists up, lose and weak, noddle arms.

Her eyes are green.

Her smile catches you b...

“I have a doctor’s appointment today,” Anna said. “Can you take the kid’s to school?”

Henry sucked his teeth. “ I would but I have to go on early tomorrow. They can ride the bus, right?”

“Abigail is still getting bullied.”

He rolled his eyes. “She just needs to fit back. If you want her taken then you take her. You have the day off right?”

After an argument that left her too worked up for slee...

Ghosts are not real.

Ghosts pirates were definitely not fucking real.

Logically Adam knew this.

But, knowing that didn’t make the illogical ghost pirate ship slicing through the water a few feet behind his kayak any less real.

“Give it up, son,” the man? Ghost? Zombie? leaning over the rail rasped.

Adam ignored him, paddling with everything in him. His arms screamed in protest. Fire blossome...

The hand on her ass jolted her out of her thoughts. (Insert Disney Princess name) tripped forward, nearly catching her heel in a crack in the sidewalk. She’d been reading through her dating app messages on her lunch break, deleting one pic of a unimpressive wrinkled member after another. What the hell kind of pervert would grobe her in the park, so close to the play ground. She turned to give the ...

“What about him?” I say to my husband angling his phone towards him.

Bran leans over, flicks through the album on Grindr. He stops at the most explicit image. “He’s big.”

“He seems kinda.” I turn the phone sideways, from this angle the guy is even bigger. “Big.”

“Nah.” He flashes me that devilish smile that made my knees weak when we first met five years ago. “Just right.”

I feel guilty for no...

I hold the camera up as high as I can.

Hold.

Smile.

Damn, too much teeth.

Purse my lips.

Classic duck face, but it works for me.

I push the button.

The camera takes the selfie. My bathroom lighting is all wrong. Nothing a lot of Photoshop won’t fix though.

I send the picture to my laptop.

In a few clicks of the mouse. I am 10 pounds skinner. 10 years older. And standing on a beach.

...

If she looked down, she’d see them.

Long dead hands reach. They grasp blindly. Cracked and broken fingernails crawl across the old wood.

She fixes her eyes ahead. The mist is a curtain, both metaphorically and realistically. The land of death and destruction lives behind her. Her new life and safety waits in front of her. Just beyond the mist.

All she has to do is make it to the end without loo...

“Ready?” Jones asked, trying to sound more confident than she felt. The only time traveling she’d done had been in a simulator at the academy,

Wilson nodded, “In ten.”

One.

Jones squinted at the

started with a rash. The doctors at the base shrugged. Members of the time traveler corp were always picking up weird rashes and illnesses humanity no longer had a need to build up immunities again...