Fiction: "Other Names"
Painful memories and strange reactions plague a man's series of online dates.
Work
Fiction: "Stakes"
Loneliness and longing at an Arizona Renaissance fair.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "That Dumb Space Movie"
An office Halloween party transforms into a rumination on memories, movies, and sadness.
Disabled and Disdained
When a town becomes divided between those who work and those who don’t.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Three Days Later"
A soldier attempts to deliver a death notice.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "The Waitress"
The personal and professional troubles of a Detroit waitress.
The Gruesome November Night in One of Washington’s Wealthiest Suburbs
The story of a home invasion, a torture session, and one lawyer who nearly killed another.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Evidence"
A detective, a mysterious murder, an unexpected confrontation.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Bolger"
A conversation with (and memories of) an unscrupulous bar owner.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Let All the Restless Creatures Go"
A story of medical ailments, family dynamics, and conservation work.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Simcoe Furriers"
A taxidermist's life gradually spins out of control.
What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
Be nice and listen.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Sometimes You Break Their Hearts, Sometimes They Break Yours"
An undercover alien observes various human behaviors.
The Art of Tour Guiding
What it’s like to drive tourists around the Australian outback.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Anima"
A young woman's fears and observations, both past and present.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Delira"
A depressed young woman takes a serving job alongside ominous, creepy co-workers.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "We Men of Science"
A story of science, weirdness, and alternate realities.
How to Survive the 21st Century
On our ability to multitask.
Fiction Pick the Week: "The Thief"
Theft and magic in the early 20th century.
Business History Politics Tech
A World Without Work
If jobs as we’ve known them for a century are going away, what will replace them?
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Delivery"
A pizza deliverer/calculus whiz becomes involved in the lives of two unstable college students.
"I licked my thumb, outside, by the car, and ran it over the suction cups, before I slapped the marquee to the top of my cobalt blue Toyota. The pizzas were already sitting in the passenger seat, cardboard mouths smiling. I was conscious, despite Walter’s assertion, that I was operating under the tick of a clock, an invisible, indefinite deadline. Really, we all are. But no one realizes how soon it’s coming."
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Peacetime"
An Iraq War veteran, now a paramedic, runs into trouble.
"I rewarded the man with another hit of naloxone, which made him even more alive, even less happy. Karen was busy with the gear, and I thought for sure that the coast was clear. It wasn’t. As soon as I put the note in my pocket, I saw the boy. He stood in the doorway, watching me with a basically impassive expression. He chewed his gum. He blew a splendid bubble."
Fiction Pick of the Week: "The Extra Mile"
A woman in an unhappy marriage stumbles toward change.
"Without turning the radio on, Hannah drove back into town and into the driveway of her house. She sat there in the car for a long while and ran through the drive with Tex over and over. She wanted to go back and stop herself from touching his leg. She wanted to go back and stop herself from driving there in the first place. She wanted to go back and stop the day from ever starting."
Letters of a Waste Business Man
A strange correspondence between two men--hopes, fears, work, and garbage.
"Momentous. I received my permit. Now I am equipped, attached to my own industrial serial number, and there you have it. 90023-457-89-2. I’m not fooling around when I tell you this is big business dear Fred. I could convey any thing—spoiled fruit pulp, rusted play ground equipment, big hazardous syringes, worn out shoe horns, threadbare ear muffs, passé slot machines, unwound baseballs, and emptied paint cans. Pots and pans and kettles are no big deal what so ever. In dreams begin responsibilities Fred and what’s terrific is it’s not a dream any more. I am a licensed carrier on the make."
Gentle Hands Will Save You
Scenes from an anger management facility.
"Mike began to curse his hands. Champion told him to calm down, that his hands were gentle, and that he was as likely brainwashed by this place as cured, something he would never admit sober. Champion suggested they try to escape; he was drunk enough, he thought, to just walk away."
</blockquote.
