Ben Hoffman
Next Time They Will Wow Them With The Shiny Stuff
The Indians see the ships coming and spread their blankets on the rocks to enjoy the sea breeze. So: they hide their iPods, haul their TVs up trees, bury their DVD collections deep in the dirt,...
Small Spade
Little Joel runs whooping through the stones, over bodies, and scalps Indians and beheads terrorists at your graves. He thinks grandpa needs a hero to keep him safe, and I tell him that I killed...
The Kissers
A man stands in line with other men waiting to kiss a woman in a strip mall. The men shuffle forward, never pausing, and peck the woman on the lips - mouth closed! The man with the cap is near the...
Miles Til Empty
The boy's dad always waited until the last possible second to stop for gas. He would coast up and down the hills those last hundred yards, never touching gas or brake, always somehow making it. The...
The Hygienist
The Hygienist had taken photographs inside Callie's mouth and scanned her questionnaire. The Hygienist told Callie she could have a special nightguard made. The Hygienist removed a tool from...
Gene Therapy for Nice Women in Love with Lunatics
The nice women meet once a week at a parlor, cry about their plight, laugh about their plight, and love their husbands. The women are flattered but annoyed when suitors show up at the parlor. They...
Other Dangers
We told the man at the front desk that our old teacher had been our teacher. Our old teacher was sitting in the middle of the room in a small chair, watching a small black and white television that...
Other Dangers
We told the man at the front desk that our old teacher had been our teacher. We hated our third grade teacher for the clock, but on the first day of third grade she showed us photographs from...
All the Girls We Knew in the Suburbs
Ian and I drove out to see some girls in the suburbs, but the girls' parents didn't care if we went to school with a few black kids and theirs did. Ian disappeared with one of the girls, leaving me...
Substitutes
Did you notice our daughter is not our daughter anymore?
Bed-making
My bed has been made, though not by me. I made the bed for many years to give our children the illusion that making the bed was an important thing to do, but all pretending has ended now. My wife...