by Drew Alexander ROSS

The sun ris­es above a desert moun­tain range. Its gold­en glow ban­ish­es the shad­ows in front of two gas sta­tions par­al­lel­ing a lone­ly freeway.

A man, still cling­ing to the horse­shoe head of hair he has left, stoops un­der the emp­ty garage door of one of the sta­tions. He straight­ens up and breathes in the fresh morn­ing air.

A rusty red pick­up truck and a white van ap­proach from the distance.

The bald­ing man fol­lows their progress. As the ve­hi­cles ap­proach, he pass­es his tongue over a chapped up­per lip and flash­es a yel­low-tinged megawatt smile.

Both ve­hi­cles turn in­to the gas sta­tion across the street. The man’s smile dis­ap­pears quick­er than shad­ows in sun­light. He looks at his gas prices and glances at the sta­tion across the street. They are three cents low­er than his. With a slump of the shoul­ders, the bald­ing man re­treats to his garage.

…

A man with a thick han­dle­bar mus­tache limps out of a small snack shop at­tached to the gas sta­tion across the free­way. He looks at his two un­oc­cu­pied pumps and then glances up and down the road. He sighs and leans back against the sta­tion wall.

A truck engine’s roar prompts the mus­ta­chioed man to take a stag­gered step forward.

The mus­ta­chioed man gives a friend­ly wave to an on­com­ing truck, but the truck ig­nores the wel­com­ing ges­ture and turns in­to the sta­tion across the street.

The man’s hand falls limply to his side. His neigh­bor’s fresh­ly cleaned gas price dis­play sparkles in the sun­light. It reads five cents cheap­er than his prices.

Across the street, his bald­ing neighbor’s yel­low smile flash­es. The mus­ta­chioed man limps back to his garage.

…

The bald­ing man takes a rag from his back pock­et and wipes the top of his head. He smiles at the red pick­up and the white van re­turn­ing from their jour­neys and watch­es them dri­ve back to­ward the moun­tains. A shuf­fle and clang from across the street di­vert his attention. 

His neigh­bor limps to­ward his gas price dis­play, hold­ing a lad­der. The neigh­bor gives him a fee­ble wave, and the bald­ing man an­swers the ges­ture with a wa­ver­ing smile.

…

The mus­ta­chioed man pulls his wool-lined coat tight with one hand and grips a clip­board with the oth­er. He limps across the de­sert­ed night­time high­way. A lone bulb from his neighbor’s garage casts a dimmed light out­side the station.

…

The bald­ing man slumps at a desk, star­ing at a gas price ledger with red-rimmed eyes. At the sound of a shuf­fle, he cranes his neck to­ward the garage en­trance and no­tices the clip­board in his neighbor’s hand.

Their eyes meet. The bald­ing man stands up as the mus­ta­chioed man limps over. They each raise a hand and grasp the other’s in a warm embrace.

…

The sun ris­es in the val­ley, ban­ish­ing the last ten­drils of night­time from the front of the sta­tions. The bald­ing man and the mus­ta­chioed man wave at each oth­er. Their gas prices are iden­ti­cal, ten cents high­er than they first were the pre­vi­ous day.

In the dis­tance, the red pick­up and the white van ap­proach, slow­ing down as they reach the stations.

Both ve­hi­cles stop in the mid­dle of the road. The mus­ta­chioed man and the bald­ing man step for­ward with a friend­ly wave to­ward the vehicles.

The pick­up turns in­to the bald­ing man’s sta­tion, and the van turns in­to the mus­ta­chioed man’s sta­tion. Each man steps for­ward with a smile to at­tend to their re­spec­tive customer.

As the men ap­proach, the red pick­up and the white van rev their engines.

Filed under Fiction on January 16th, 2026

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Care to Share?

by Marco VISCIOLACCIO

Your hand­shake… Was it too tight? Your dad would say so. It was clam­my. Salt-wa­tery. Don’t think too much about the hand­shake — even if it wasn’t re­al­ly a hand­shake since you were grab­bing his limp flip­per too tight­ly. You need this job. And not every­one gets past this point.

He’s wear­ing a suit, the man­a­tee. It’s tai­lored around his fat, gray neck. His tie’s got lit­tle em­broi­dered clam shells. White mol­lusks on blue back­ing. Blue — it’s a pow­er col­or. Strong, like hur­ri­cane waves or rip­tide. Like ex­ec­u­tives with leath­ery gray skin. 

You know you shouldn’t have worn the red tie to­day. You had a choice and it was the wrong one. He looks at your chest when he be­gins, hesitantly,

“This is your… Third round in­ter­view so far.”

You don’t re­ply. You sit on the chair in front of his desk. It’s moist. There’s a clump of sea­weed at­tached to one of the legs. It reeks of brine.

Three rounds of in­ter­view. Of on­ly two, the re­cruiter had lied. But not every­one can get an en­try-lev­el role do­ing front-end test­ing at a mid-lev­el West Coast SaaS start­up (with ben­e­fits). They may get past the on­line in­ter­views, but that’s on­ly be­cause most peo­ple are al­lowed to get this far, the man­a­tee. But not every­one gets past the man­a­tee. Will you? The thought makes you want to vom­it blood.

He smiles with big bul­bous jowls. “Shel­ley and her team were hap­py to pass on feed­back when you spoke with them last month. Her, ‘pod,’ so to speak,” he adds.

You don’t know who Shel­ley is. She’s a name on let­ter­head that you fol­lowed up with ex­act­ly four hours af­ter the ces­sa­tion of your in­ter­view two months ago, but be­yond that, she doesn’t ex­ist. You don’t want her to ex­ist. You just want a job. And so you nod, af­firm­ing the manatee.

“It was nice to meet her team,” you say. “Or, ‘pod.’”

He frowns. You’re not al­lowed to use that word in a pro­fes­sion­al en­vi­ron­ment like this. You should have known bet­ter. The man­a­tee looks at some­thing on his lap­top. It churns, like it’s a boat’s pro­peller, about to rip off and scar you and the man­a­tee both.

He swal­lows. Gur­gles, more like. A blow­hole dis­charges but he does­n’t look em­bar­rassed, no, be­cause it’s a pow­er­ful ac­tion for an executive. 

“I took a look at some of the ex­er­cis­es you com­plet­ed,” he says.

You don’t re­mem­ber them, the ex­er­cis­es. They may have been log­a­rith­mic prob­lems or cal­is­then­ics. That was four months ago. When you were just as poor. You’ve been liv­ing with a woman twice your age since then. You met her on­line and she owns an apart­ment in the city and you need a bed and some­where to store your mas­sive col­lec­tion of stu­pid, stu­pid red ties. She looks like the woman on the manatee’s desk, in a pho­to. The woman’s got her arm around the manatee. 

In that pic­ture, he has things you don’t. Sun­glass­es. Mar­gar­i­tas, in both fins. A blue-white Hawai­ian shirt un­but­toned to his mid-chest. An income.

The man­a­tee laughs. A bel­low sort of laugh. It goes on too long, as if he were hit with a yacht. You no­tice the batch of coral on his desk, all sharp. He’s got pens stick­ing out of the lit­tle holes at odd an­gles. And a Top Sales award next to it.

“Your re­sume is im­pres­sive,” he says. “Do you have any ques­tions on the role?”

How is a man­a­tee sit­ting at a desk?

But that’s an asi­nine ques­tion to ask in a job in­ter­view. He’s got a mas­sive, flap­ping, wet tail and an in­come and not every­one can have both of those — maybe one, but not usu­al­ly both, not in this economy.

“What is the most chal­leng­ing block­er your team re­solves on a dai­ly ba­sis?” you croak.

“Great ques­tion,” he lies. He talks at you but looks at the poster of kelp on the wall, avoid­ing eye con­tact. That’s a bad sign. You lean for­ward and smile. You try to win back the man­a­tee but it feels like an in­hu­man task, win­ning the ap­proval of an un­der­wa­ter mam­mal in ex­change for in­come. Makes you nauseous.

Ten min­utes ago you were in the hand­i­cap stall across from the women’s re­stroom, vom­it­ing in­to the toi­let be­tween hits of your vape cart. Some­thing in the bowl was red. Like your tie, the blood, red. It’s a pow­er col­or, you coped. Pow­er­ful, like your hair­cut that your fa­ther rec­om­mend­ed, as the man­a­tee doesn’t re­spect long hair. And not every­one gets past the man­a­tee, do they?

The man­a­tee looks at you. He squints and smiles with fleshy black lips. He stud­ies you. Whiskers twitch and a bead of slob­bery mois­ture drips on­to his desk. He fi­nal­ly asks, as if he doesn’t know, “What makes this role at­trac­tive for you?”

Food, you want to say. Kelp, to be re­lat­able. And those are ter­ri­ble an­swers. The truth: you want to swim free. Like him, you want to fol­low the warm wa­ter chan­nels along the Gulf Stream and cozy in­to in­lets and mi­grate with the ones you love — and you can’t do that with­out an in­come. So for now you need an of­fice with air con­di­tion­ing and a copi­er with salt dried on top of touch­screens. You need the job and for that you need the manatee’s re­spect and love and mer­cy. But you can’t say that in a job interview. 

It’s too much. You say some­thing else. But it’s not like what you say is mem­o­rable or im­por­tant enough to get any­thing more than a smile. 

He nods. At your ex­it, he de­clines to rise. If he could, if he didn’t have a mas­sive meaty tail un­der that desk, he wouldn’t, any­way. He just hands you a limp flip­per and brays, “You’ll be hear­ing from our team soon.”

That’s a salt­wa­ter lie. Your hand­shake is wet and your tie is red. And you know, deep down, you’re not go­ing to make it past the manatee.

Filed under Fiction on January 2nd, 2026

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Care to Share?

by Rolf EBELING

We whip our car in­to the round­about too fast, cut off a bus, wave sor­ry-sor­ry-sor­ry out the back win­dow to the honk­ing bus, and ac­cel­er­ate down the last ex­it curve. In the front seats, we ar­gue. Bursts of words vol­ley from the driver’s side to the pas­sen­ger side and back again about which ur­gent care clin­ic is ac­tu­al­ly the clos­est and which one will ac­tu­al­ly be open at this time of the morn­ing on Christ­mas Eve. Scrunched up on the rear bench seat, we have a fever, our head hurts, we need a pep­per­mint shake, and we are not hap­py at all about be­ing so far away from the pile of presents un­der the big tree.

The cousin mag­ic meld­ing us to­geth­er is fiz­zling out. Each Christ­mas — well, at least for a few hours dur­ing Christ­mas — the once-a-year, nos­tal­gia-fu­eled nov­el­ty of see­ing each oth­er in re­al life would ef­fec­tive­ly fuse us in­to a sin­gle per­son. The wide gaps and jagged fis­sures be­tween our gen­er­a­tions, per­son­al­i­ties, and home ad­dress­es near­ly van­ished. We be­came such a sin­gu­lar en­ti­ty that we knew what we were think­ing and feel­ing — and what we would be think­ing and feel­ing, so much so that we would con­duct en­tire con­ver­sa­tions pure­ly through body lan­guage, or, if things got a lit­tle heat­ed, by shoot­ing point­ed looks at ourselves.

Right now, though, we are crack­ing apart. On our pas­sen­ger side, we sim­mer in frus­tra­tion at our driver’s side’s lead foot, our in­sis­tence on fa­vor­ing our flawed mem­o­ry over the pre­cise map on our phone, or when that fails, swerv­ing across busy traf­fic to ask for tips from com­plete strangers in strip mall park­ing lots. On our driver’s side, we chafe at our pas­sen­ger side fre­quent and lengthy plunges in­to glow­er­ing judg­ment, a com­plete in­abil­i­ty to just for once loosen up and — 

— right then we near­ly run the lit­tle man over.

We brake hard, but even be­fore the car stops and rocks back­wards   inch­es from the lit­tle man’s wide chest , we feel a dif­fer­ent shock. The lit­tle man is wear­ing a boxy, over­sized, earth-toned plaid suit straight out of the 1970s; a 1970s that  we in the front of the car keep in scat­tered patch­es of child­hood mem­o­ry. His care­ful­ly knot­ted tie with bur­gundy and gold stripes con­trasts with his mint green dress shirt. His mus­tache is Burt Reynolds thick, and he is sport­ing a nar­row-brimmed straw hat — a hat just like the one we re­mem­bered steal­ing off the head of our grand­fa­ther be­fore church on Christ­mas Eve morn­ings. We would run away, and our grand­fa­ther would try to chase us across the red tile pa­tio in his big suit, the click­ety-click sound of our tiny dress shoes punc­tu­at­ing our laughter.

In the front, look­ing at the lit­tle man, we feel a strange weight, as though a long emp­ty space with­in us is sud­den­ly and un­ex­pect­ed­ly filled. 

In the back, we feel even hot­ter, and why did we have to stop so hard, and now our head re­al­ly hurts, and did this lit­tle man have any presents and our pep­per­mint shake?

The lit­tle man ap­pears by our driver’s‑side window.

“Please chil­dren,” he says, “I will be late for Mass. Take me.”

From the pas­sen­ger side, we shift the heav­i­ness for a mo­ment. We know we can’t be see­ing this, can we? How could we be here, the smell of burn­ing rub­ber from our tire skid marks waft­ing in through the vents, stopped in the mid­dle of a ran­dom street af­ter near­ly run­ning over a very spe­cif­ic, high­ly de­tailed, and Nixon-era fam­i­ly phan­tom who is ask­ing us for a ride to church? Ridicu­lous. Im­prob­a­ble at best. Ac­tu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble. We can see that it is clear­ly a stranger, some odd­ball with co­in­ci­den­tal­ly ac­cu­rate body pro­por­tions, taste in vin­tage cloth­ing, and, fine, maybe the voice was dead on, but we need to get mov­ing be­cause our fever in the back seat is not go­ing to break on its own, we need to get an­tibi­otics, and, come on, it’s Christ­mas Eve and ghosts do not exist.

“Get in,” we say from the driver’s side.

The lit­tle man shuf­fles to the rear door, fum­bles with the han­dle, and gin­ger­ly stoops to get in be­hind the driver’s seat. He pulls the door shut and ex­hales con­tent­ed­ly. “Bless you, children.”

In the pas­sen­ger seat, we feel stretched be­tween dumb­struck and apoplec­tic. How, we won­dered, did any part of us in the driver’s seat think this was a good idea? Our face flush­es with heat, our eyes grow wide, and our head turns to un­veil our most lethal glare to­wards the stun­ning­ly id­i­ot­ic part of our­selves in the driver’s seat. Yet, in the mo­ment we turn to un­leash un­re­lent­ing eye­beams of con­dem­na­tion, we feel the strange weight in­side of our­selves set­tling, find­ing its way in­to old con­tours and crevices, and ra­di­at­ing a fa­mil­iar warmth. Stop it, we think, this is not our grand­fa­ther, and a mem­o­ry can’t just mag­i­cal­ly come alive, pop in­to re­al life, slide in­to the back of our car, and make that ache go away, and — 

— in the driver’s seat, we feel the rays of ex­as­per­at­ed rage blast through us and we are un­able to look away from the in­can­des­cent eyes from the pas­sen­ger seat locked on­to our own. How­ev­er, a calm shields us from the worst of the ra­di­a­tion. The strange weight has trans­formed quick­ly in­to com­fort on our side of the car, fill­ing the empti­ness in­side our­selves be­fore the lit­tle man had even asked for a ride. A smart part of our­selves knows that what we are see­ing is a fluke and not a phan­tom, but that part of our­selves shuts up as we think that maybe, just maybe, this is a chance, if on­ly for a mo­ment, to feel like a hap­py kid run­ning across a pa­tio again, and, hey, the least we can do is give a friend­ly ghost a ride to church because — 

“It’s Christ­mas,” we say from the driver’s seat.

This inar­guable  and in­fu­ri­at­ing­ly smug  fact hangs in the air be­tween us.

In the driver’s seat, we shrug.

In the pas­sen­ger seat, we turn to the lit­tle man. “We need to take her to a doc­tor now. She has a fever and —”

“My child,” says the lit­tle man. “I will show you the way.”

When the lit­tle man had got­ten in the car, we had scoot­ed across the rear bench seat as fast as we could and scrunched up tighter in the cor­ner. He wasn’t car­ry­ing any presents, or our pep­per­mint shake. We looked at our­selves in the front seats and frowned hard when we said, “it’s Christ­mas.” We want­ed to say this is dumb re­al­ly loud and maybe cry re­al­ly, re­al­ly hard, but we didn’t be­cause up front we looked kind of sad and hap­py at the same time.

“Please, child, dri­ve,” says the lit­tle man. “Mass be­gins soon.”

We ac­cel­er­ate down the street. The lit­tle man leans for­ward, anx­ious­ly look­ing out the front window. 

“You are a Christ­mas kind­ness, my chil­dren. A kind­ness that has left my life,” says the lit­tle man. “I awoke to­day as I do every morn­ing. I dressed, pre­pared my hum­ble meal, and sat by my­self at the kitchen ta­ble. While the sun rose, I won­dered how I would get to church.”

As the lit­tle man speaks, we no­tice that his cologne is our grandfather’s brand.

“Where I sit at Mass there are still scratch­es in the pew from when my own chil­dren were young and care­less. I run my fin­gers through those grooves.”

The lit­tle man leans for­ward fur­ther, grip­ping the tops of each front seat. “My chil­dren are grown now and far away. Per­haps they have scratch­es in their pews from their own children.”

On the pas­sen­ger side, we un­clench our teeth. The back of our neck tin­gles, and we try to sti­fle a hitch in our breath. We imag­ine the lit­tle man sit­ting alone in the mut­ed light of the nave, gen­tly trac­ing those weath­ered lines in the pew, and we have to bite our lip to keep it to­geth­er, be­cause no way we were go­ing to give the driver’s side one bit of sat­is­fac­tion in this mo­ment. Fine, we ra­tio­nal­ize, we’re do­ing a good thing by giv­ing the Ghost of Co­in­ci­dence Present a ride, and maybe his rot­ten chil­dren will feel a wave of un­ex­pect­ed shame roll over them wher­ev­er they were ly­ing on a beach. Hon­est­ly, how  shit­ty are this guy’s kids? we think on the driver’s side. The in­dig­na­tion we feel on the lit­tle man’s be­half is a re­lief, be­cause oth­er­wise, there was no way the pas­sen­ger side would let us live this episode down. We think about the lit­tle man in church, shak­ing hands and say­ing peace be with you to the fam­i­lies around him, and we have to bite our lip to keep it to­geth­er. We sneak a look at the pas­sen­ger side. Over there, we aren’t frown­ing, so maybe we have warmed up to our sur­prise ex­per­i­ment in Christ­mas good­will. In the back, how­ev­er, our cheeks are bright red, and we are look­ing quizzi­cal and a lit­tle bit pissed off.

“LEFT,” says the lit­tle man. “It is very close.”

“You said the doc­tor is on the way?” we ask from the pas­sen­ger side.

“RIGHT. Yes, my child, we are very close.”

We zig-zag through the down­town, pass­ing long blocks of store­fronts that ap­pear less and less pros­per­ous the far­ther we dri­ve. On the driver’s and pas­sen­ger side, the grungi­ness of the con­sign­ment stores and pay­day loan of­fices make us even more sub­dued and pen­sive. This lit­tle man is not our grand­fa­ther, but we are do­ing a good thing to­day. We will get him to where he needs to be. Where he will be em­braced and where he will be loved.

“STOP,” says the lit­tle man.

We hit the brakes. With alarm­ing speed, the lit­tle man opens the rear pas­sen­ger door, hops out, scam­pers across the street, and skips over the curb, mak­ing a straight line to a large faux-Me­dieval look­ing door with flaky paint. A red neon sign clicks alive and blinks OPEN from the door’s tiny arched window. 

We low­er the pas­sen­ger side win­dow and stare. Next to the door, two scruffy old­er men stand laugh­ing as the lit­tle man yanks on the han­dle and bolts inside.

“Right on time,” says one.

“Save us a spot in the pew,” says the oth­er, call­ing af­ter the lit­tle man.

The two men shuf­fle inside.

We look up. Above the door and a chipped plas­ter gar­goyle bolt­ed in­to the grimy stuc­co wall, a large, fad­ed sign says “St. Chester’s Abbey” in hand-paint­ed goth­ic let­ters. “Di­vine Spir­its. Heav­en­ly Com­pa­ny. Ser­vices Dai­ly, 7AM to 2AM,” the sign says. A car­toon saint, lit­tle bub­bles ris­ing through his ha­lo, rests his el­bow on the “Y” in “Abbey,” cradling a jum­bo chal­ice of foamy beer, and laughs. 

In the back, we are frus­trat­ed. We pull our legs up to our chest. We want to not be so hot, our head to not hurt so much, to get presents, and get our pep­per­mint shake right now, but when we look at our­selves in the driver’s seat and the pas­sen­ger seat, we feel dif­fer­ent, kind of like we are heav­ier all of a sud­den. We have not seen ex­pres­sions like that on our faces be­fore. Our mouths are open, and we aren’t sure if we are re­al­ly con­fused, or em­bar­rassed, or su­per mad, or that we are about to say some­thing, or laugh crazy hard, or that we are go­ing to cry.We don’t un­der­stand what has just hap­pened, and that makes us a lit­tle sad, too.

Filed under Fiction on December 19th, 2025

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