Finding Home
The morning sun was just starting to illuminate the mountains as I pulled up to the last house I had on my route for tonight, a modest place with the name “Tantivy" on the mailbox. Even though I'd… lost my own home and had been living out of my truck...
Escaping Temptations
I didn't think it was going to be a bad day today. While I was at work, I got the notification that the package I was expecting had been delivered, and I spent most of the afternoon excited and looking forward to my new toy. I made it home to find the...
Laying Pipe
Sometimes when you've been at a job for a long time, you feel you've pretty much seen every crazy situation it can throw at you. In my case, that meant every manner of perverse piping job and every imaginable clog thereof. And yet when I was contacted...
Dessert at the Mall
The shopping mall is even quieter at night than during the day, but I don't mind it. People think it's weird to live there, but some of us need to live in _particular conditions_ that make it actually kind of decent. You might be a bit fragile to the...
String 'im Up
A rainy day at home, tinkering. I called it home, anyway, the little falling-apart shack on the edge of the foothills. I don't remember...paying for it, or even moving in, specifically. It was just shelter, and nobody else complained, so I guess that...
Alf's New Life
I don't even miss having bones. I mean, don't get me wrong, if I'd known my next hookup would abduct me to his basement and flatten me like a frickin' pie crust, I probably would've steered clear of the guy. But that's over and done with--I actually...
Claimed: Another Wolf's Poison
I was up early as usual to catch the 75 bus into town. It was dark even for the hour, rainy and overcast. The bus stop offered shelter at least; a little blue structure whose graffitied walls were spangled with random band logo stickers. I seated...
Alf's New Job
"Alfie!" _I wish she wouldn't keep calling me that,_ I thought. _I'm not_ eight _anymore._ I got off the couch and looked down the balcony. "What?" "I'm going out with Sheila this morning, can you take your father to his appointment? Thank you!" I...
Dietrich
"You can't honestly _enjoy_ being fat." The comment left on my latest video shouldn't have affected me as much as it did. I was no stranger to the jeers and barbs slung at me by random viewers--I knew they'd come when I started my channel, which in...
Rough Awakening
I rolled out of the pizzeria sometime after closing and made my way down to the firehouse by my own light. My day job is just about the easiest thing out there--I like to say I can do it with my eyes closed, and usually do. At night, though, comes...