Tales from Chicago — July 2021 — I swear all of the following is true. My flight from Paris to Chicago by way of Reykjavik, Iceland got off to a rocky start. This was back in mid-July when the threat of Covid had temporarily abated. People were ready to travel again, which meant there would be long…

It’s lonely up here. The others used to say you get used to it but now they’re gone too. Once upon a time this place was a lush utopia. Now it’s become barren, a patchy wasteland. There are few other signs of life. You start to lose hope after a…

Sixteen-year-old Rory Wiggins stood at attention in the entrance of Cicero’s Pizzeria. His light-pink dress shirt was drenched, along with the thighs of his khaki pants. Black grease from his bicycle chain branded the cuff of his right ankle. The hostess, a platinum blond with pink braces, appeared from the…

Johnny woke up on Saturday at 4:00 a.m. feeling the overwhelming need to take a shit. The evening before had been poker night — seven-card stud with a ten-dollar buy-in. Everyone brought a case of beer to the occasion. It was one of those increasingly rare nights of laughs between…

Once upon a time There was a boy Who liked a girl. He crushed on her from afar. She was different from all the other Cookie-cutter girls, unique and Beautiful in her own way. …

By Stephen M. Tomic — She was a physical specimen, so gifted and so fast that some speculated scientists had made her in a lab. She never juiced or cheated, but she had feet like flippers and muscular shoulders the size of small boulders. Her childhood dream was to become an Olympic champion someday. Nothing…