Todd Clay Stuart

She had disco in her hips and wants to dance. Tells me her name is Sheila, but wishes it were Flannery. Naturally, I assume she’s a writer. “No, I sell shit on eBay for people,” …

On the first night of the comet, Beth looks up between the austere poplar trees in their back yard and pretends to see what Jake sees, but the sky—star-smeared and wondrous—is just black gesso to …

 My nine-year-old thinks his new wheelchair is a race car. I strap him in and he goes zoom zoom zoom, brrrap brrrap brrrap. Robbie can’t read—he’ll never read—but he’s plastered racing decals all over his …

Nebraska in October. Autumn winds are the collective breath of a thousand withering corn fields. I think of home, I think of my older sister, her brown lossless eyes, her hair, the color of dried …

According to my big brother Daryl, mothers used to wrap their stillborns in gauze and stick them in a hope chest, hoping their child’s heart would then start beating again. I suspected Daryl was full …

The object of the game is to see how long we can hold a lit Cherry Bomb in our hand before tossing it away. Ray-Ray Campbell claims he’s champion of the fucking world. Took the …

She was half angel, half angel dust, with eyes like coal mines that could cave in any time. Wore my dirty tee shirts straight off the floor. Wrote i love the fuck out of you in purple lipstick …

I go down and take a long drink, splash my face, and fill the bucket with water. I look up toward the road. The sun rips through the tree branches.