The dry harsh laughter of a man in the distance streams into a high and tenor chuckle right behind her, then far away, the upstairs telephone clamors and she doesn’t pick up at first.

The ninth ring drives her into near insanity yet even now she doesn’t answer because her husband, Bill, just turned into a winged zebra,…

I got no proof but I have my certainty. One day I'll walk out of here. I taped my four windows with duct tape, all waterproof and air tight so the dark can't leak in, can't sneak in like a thief, and rob my peace.



I live in the short end of the L-shape, third floor, on the top story of this hundred-unit apartment building and it’s the oldest part of this rickety joint, but there's an up side to everything because it means…

Etta Robinson invited her closest friends to watch the cremation. They declined.

She watched her husband, Silky's body flail around in the crematory for two hours, then scavenged the remains.

"Make instruments from my bones," Silky asked her in his dying wish, but the cremators offered just the finger, hand and toe…

Turns out the psych wing in prison is no place to raise a baby.

They called it an evaluation, I call it a rest, like the rest of them can go to hell. That kind of rest. They evaluated me for twenty years off and on. You'd think they'd have their answers by now. You'd think they have enough on me.

***

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