The bent gnome at the Safeway cash register was already in a foul mood when the next customer approached. Her last transaction was so noxious that she had been forced to mutter dark little gnome curses at the departing customer’s back while fantasizing about their milk going bad and their eggs rupturing erratically before they…
Stan was tossing his deadened cell in the back of his Mercedes when the jalopy rolled up to the club. It was a busted-up bucket, with jagged rust-holes rent through the sides and an engine that sounded like it was being tortured. The car didn’t park, but instead idled in the middle of lot, its…
Patient Rob stared with dark-rabbit eyes as the first thirty seconds ticked off the clock. “…so I get to the club, y’know, and there’s this new bouncer there, some skinny prick…don’t even know why they hired him, couldn’t bounce shit.” Therapist Chodoff slowly uncrossed and recrossed his legs while snuggling back deeper into his plush,…
Michael saw aliens everywhere. They hung like monkeys from telephone wires and sprung like giant grasshoppers down the highway. They stood as motionless as statues on Widow’s Walks and burrowed under the yard like smiling moles. They posted themselves by Michael’s bed every night and filtered out the bad dreams. The dark camp used to…
Marshall was in trouble. Quinn could hear the desperate inflections of his voice through the blank verse of the text message. “Could you please come over?” …it read. It was a startling and unwelcome message to get while lounging naked in bed with your girlfriend, body sleek and satisfied from Saturday-morning delight. Maria raised herself…
Wisps of blue vapor waft out of the revolutionary’s starving stomach and are formulated into bars of revolt crafted by the crazed crab under the floorboards. He has been here for generations, reading his tomes, thumping his brain with his fist, waiting for the needle of opinion to sway his way. The masses need a…
It’s hard to describe the sound the man was making. It’s as if he was yelling moans, I guess, the way I imagine a retarded demon would sound, but it was interspersed with a kind of infantile babbling. Whatever it sounded like, the man on line at the Burger King was convinced he was actually…
The Whiskey poured clean down from the light-winking liter to the worn Gatorade bottle to the mouths of me and my friends. The copper vapors swirled lazily in the wide heat of August so we imbibed whether we touched our lips to the bottle or not. The sun was a universal melody that sung vibes…
She had brought him another crossword puzzle. It seemed like she did this at distinct intervals, but time was hard to measure when the light rose and fell outside the plane’s windows every few moments. They were passing through a dark time now, so Honey dialed up his tiny airplane light to better see the…
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. -Pro-Ana saying Left foot placed two-and-one-half inches from the left edge of the scale, abutting the third raised line on the weighing surface. Right foot about three-and-one-quarter inches from the right side to compensate for a slight imbalance in…
The Other Hudson Valley 