WORDCHASM

Renting a van with two of your closest co-workers. Taking that 8-5 anxiety and compressing it — jamming it inside an 80-mile-per-hour overloaded grocery-go-getter.
The distinct aroma of greasy McDonald’s wrappers, the surround smell of styrofoam enriched coffee, and bladders on the turbulent brink.
Putter-purring engine, strip club billboards shouting, ‘FREE SHOWERS FOR TRUCKERS’, and silence.
We make [...]

Beep…Beep…Beep…’Oh no,’ I inwardly groaned. It was my watch. ‘Always with the beeping.’ I thought unhappily. ‘Some day, I’ll figure out how to change that.’
I slowly and involuntarily made to get out of bed. The big problem was, I wasn’t lying on a bed. I opened my eyes and saw…sky? ‘That can’t be right,’ I [...]

Essentials only. Clothes, toiletries (no shampoo, soap, or towel- that’s what the Super 8 is for). Packing is to road trips as taking cover is to Chuck Pfarrer; do it any sooner than absolutely necessary and it just isn’t cool anymore. The same goes for how much to pack. No caffeine, it’s a diuretic. Trips [...]

A freckle-faced kid, incongruous in the city scene, dressed in ratty overalls and a faded, torn plaid shirt, holds a hand-made tree branch slingshot in his hand. He looks up, realizing he’s extended a silver-platter invitation to the wrath of the demonic dill.

9:00 and it’s already hot — surrounding our trinket-strewn lawnscape with a twinkling, sulfuric haze. The Calusa once cultivated this land. This time of day, they’d already be in full swing: carrying fresh water, building huts, and hauling fish. But, here we are still scrambling to promote and stage scattered buffets of consumer bloat.
I’m wincing, [...]

“Well, you’re awful brave,” said the man next to me sluggishly, perhaps even drunkenly, as I pondered what in the world my problem was. My hands did not shake. My respiration was regular. The only evidence that I was not cool as a cucumber were my eyes, owlishly large and flitting back [...]

by Andrew Koop
My teeth actually chattered as the wave of beer crashed over my red face. Clothing had fallen under the jurisdiction of a tree-climbing rugby hobbit. A circle of large, hairy trolls stood complicit — I in the center — as they chanted “ZULU, ZULU, ZULU.” These things just happen so fast…
Some people want [...]

I walked timidly up the steps to the pale blue door. The sign said “NO SOLICITORS.” I turned back as the Aerostar pulled away — no backing down now. Afterall, this was a friend’s house. A little social anxiety never killed anybody.
The doorbell glowed yellow — I stared at it blankly for a spell. I [...]

I was up really late — having trouble sleeping, I clenched my jaw tight and waded through tired, bulky email inboxes. A half an hour in, I noticed an unread message. Something had come in from the design site. The message read:
E-commerce site with simple bold colorful graphics and quick response time.
Looking for help with [...]

To be accurate, it was just Buda. Pest, I hear, is a whole ‘nother animal…
Mike and I loped down the dark street. We’d taken leave of the girls pajama partying it up in our Hungarian studio apartment. Call it a half loft…make it a fourth. They would snuggle up with the bottle of wine and [...]

by Andrew Koop
I put the pedal to the floor on my 1992 Camaro and stared straight into the fuel charged haze of the HOV lane. The place: suburban Dallas…Irving; the time: 11:00 am. DJ’s eyes were wide with nodoze terrors. His arms gyrated seemingly out of their sockets to the salsa rhythm on the radio.
“Take [...]

Once upon a time in a land not far from here, in a regular American state, in a regular American town, in a regular American suburban neighborhood, a group of regular American kids were playing the regular American game of cricket in the neighborhood park. Careless childhood screams echoed through the late golden afternoon [...]