Fiction

West Ridge

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Floor five was perverse—an ancient architectural puzzle, perhaps, or else some administrative inside joke. Elias had been wandering vacant hallways for the better part of that evening. His absences never seemed to register with the rest, or, at least, they had yet to inspire a search. It was quite a difficult thing to comprehend, to be fair, and aloofness in other matters may have impressed that this was by intention.

The blueprint posted at the stairwell bore no connection to reality—well, none that he’d deciphered—and numbers skipped up and down the halls as they pleased. Through a doorway, over ten desks packed in awkward rows, behind a window, he glimpsed another passage. It seemed such were accessible only by traipsing past lecterns, a practice that inexplicably assumed adjacent rooms never came under simultaneous use. What classes even met back there?

MATH 643/PHIL 661: Topics in Logic
Location: Barnette 533c
Time: 3:00pm-4:30pm Tue/Thu
Instructor: a name—no head shot, no office number, nor any apparent academic genealogy.
Description: TBD.

That’d attract the sort to make the trek twice a week, he figured. Then again, he’d enroll…

Reading Wrap-Up

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My aim at the start of this year was to read more novels and short fiction, rather than watch the disgusting amount of films I did last year. Three months in, I’ve been somewhat successful.

Novels
Poems and Short Stories
1. HAD
2. Permafrost

Novels

In January, February, and March, I read 10 novels out of the 12 that I’d hoped for.

The Shining, by Stephen King

I’m a big fan of The Shining film by Stanley Kubrick, but I’d always heard that it is very different from the original book. Most of the other media I’ve seen that is based on King’s stories has disappointed me, so I went into The Shining novel with some trepidation.

I needn’t have feared: the book is great. It is quite verbose—the majority of situations are shown separately from the three main characters’ perspectives—but this never felt repetitive. The prose is simple, yet still interesting: a breeze to read; I flew through the 600+ pages of my mass market paperback in under six days.

In the novel, Jack’s point of view provides a warped and repressed picture of his past actions and his present motivations. He comes off as a much more sympathetic character than Jack does in the film—until he doesn’t.

Interestingly, while both are scary, the things I found most frightening in book are explicitly supernatural, and left out of the film. Even so, I personally think that Kubrick crafted a great adaptation: it takes liberties, but gave me a similar feeling of dread and decline. I’ll definitely check out more Stephen King, probably starting with the source material for my other favorite movie adaptations: Carrie (1976) and Christine (1983).

— 4/5 —

The next thing I read was These Demented Lands, a sequel to the novel Morvern Callar, which I read last year.

Morvern Callar, by Alan Warner (Read in 2025)

Morvern Callar, directed by Lynne Ramsay, is my unequivocal favorite film of all time. The movie released in 2002, while the novel on which it’s based was written by Alan Warner, and published in 1995. Online you’ll find numerous posts that dismiss the novel as inferior to its adaptation—so it was to my great surprise that I fell in love with the book as well! I’ve re-read large sections of it, many multiple times, and the paperback stands alongside the blu ray among my most prized possessions. Regardless of the medium, Morvern Callar is a story about grief and anxiety, loneliness and alienation, survival and independence; Morvern is the most that I’ve ever related to a fictional character.

— 5/5 —

These Demented Lands, by Alan Warner

‘Man, you are zilch, you are zilch in weirdyness to things I did and saw way Down There,’ I shouted to him as he approached, the stag’s horns on his motorcycle helmet (that he was later arrested for as an accident hazard) moving slow from side to side as he braked to a stop; the old motorbike phuttering away.
— These Demented Lands, pp. 44

These Demented Lands is a bizarre creation. It’s a sequel that—beyond the narrative voice—never lets on that it is a sequel until the final line; it never even lets on if what’s written is meant to be taken literally. After only one read, I’m not capable of deciphering what it’s all exactly about, but I know that I had a blast. It is a sort of surrealist mix of Morvern Callar and Mad Max; more funny and more disturbing than Morvern’s first adventure, but never quite as profound.

— 4/5 —

The Sopranos, by Alan Warner

I went into The Sopranos not knowing what to expect. Why was Alan Warner writing about “the sexual adventures of Catholic girls,” as the quote from E. Anne Proulx on the back of my copy states? What could possibly have influenced such an about face from his first two works?

The first chapter had me chuckling, though, and I immediately realized my mistake: of course he should write a comedy, These Demented Lands was hilarious! When I reached the chapter titled Hymn to Orla Johnstone, I found he had not deviated at all—I was reading a continuation of the ideas in Morvern, just tackled from new perspectives.

But what Fionnula felt was anger, not anger at Iain or Catriona, not anger at Kay’s folk, not even anger at their absurd religion, but anger at the sky and the roundabout and the whole charade that puts a young, lovely girl, lost in a city; unknown as to what she really wants an too lonely to imagine.
— The Sopranos, pp. 236

The Sopranos is the incredibly written, hilarious, crushingly sad, and wonderfully hopeful story of a life-changing 24 hour period in the lives of six young women. The review I quoted above is unforgivably misleading: there is little on page sexual activity, and what there is, is not lurid. It’s not sexualizing Catholic schoolgirls, the characters are just 17 year olds; their conversations will, of course, veer into risqué territory.

Fionnula accepted what Orla had told her by reaching out, taking the fiver in her hand and gripping it tight, she accepted everything that was going to happen until the end.
— The Sopranos, pp. 323

The final chapter is one of the most emotional endings that I have ever read. Never have I laughed and cried so much while reading one book.

— 5/5 —

Under the Skin, by Michel Faber

Another week and another Scottish novel that served as source material for a film that I love. I won’t rag on this too much, but suffice it to say that the film is almost entirely different—and is much better for it. The characters were plain, the ideas surface level, and the world building made little sense beyond providing a contrived premise for the specific moral quandaries the author had in mind.

— 2/5 —

The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hour, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell burst, the plummet of the car from the bridge.
— The Blind Assassin, pp. 417-418

One of the most impressive novels that I have ever read. It’s a page-turning mystery, a devastating tragedy, a complex romance, and a meticulous piece of feminist historical fiction, all woven into a whole that is even greater. Alias Grace has long been my go to answer for, “what is my favorite book?” And The Blind Assassin is at least its equal.

— 5/5 —

In Bloom, by C. J. Skuse

The Sweetpea series is a guilty pleasure of mine. At its best, the writing is incredibly clever and funny. At its worst, the story devolves into trashy smut and the author’s repetitive musings on things that she finds annoying.

Previous to this year, I’d already seen the show and read the first book, but I won’t dedicate a full review to those. The Starz show is better than the novels in many ways—it mostly avoids self indulgence and shows how awkward and disturbing Rhiannon is when observed from outside her perspective—and worse in others—it chickens out of a certain plot line in a way that strains believability.

In Bloom is the second book of the series and it is probably the weakest of the three that I’ve read. Still, it was pretty darn entertaining and the ending was so great that I bumped my opinion into the positive.

— 3/5 —

The Stars in the Bright Sky, by Alan Warner

tSitBS is an excellent sequel to The Sopranos, though I did not find it nearly as experimental or emotional. The dialogue and character work is amazing, as expected, and it’s the funniest Warner book I’ve read so far. The ending is absolutely ridiculous—I couldn’t have worked it out even if I had 100 guesses.

— 4/5 —

Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh

After devouring four Alan Warner novels, I decided to check out other Scots writing. What could be a better choice to start with than Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting? It’s one of the most popular Scottish books of all time, and Welsh and Warner seem to be good friends.

Trainspotting is one of the most disgusting pieces of fiction that I’ve ever read, and I say that (mostly) as a compliment. Individual chapters would frequently blow me away, but they never wove together in a particularly moving manner—unlike the set pieces in The Sopranos, which frequently crescendo-ed to have me rolling with laughter or bawling my eyes out. Nevertheless, it features excellent prose and complex, entertaining characters, so I will definitely read more from Welsh in the future.

— 4/5 —

The Panopticon, by Jenni Fagan

The Panopticon is YA Trainspotting, for better and for worse. I loved each of the residents, and I was invested in their plights—I was on their side right from the jump, and I loved them—flaws and all. But the author cared far too much that us readers MUST love her characters, and eventually their goodness was spelled out to the point of emotional manipulation. As Scots writing, it felt inspired by Warner and Welsh, but it lacked their harsh, experimental brilliance.

— 3/5 —

Dead Head, by C. J. Skuse

The change of setting was welcome in Sweetpea book three, and the new characters were mostly excellent. However, it would periodically insert some bland new sexual predator or child abuser for Rhi to murder, and the author is clearly not interested in writing these scenarios anymore—and I’m certainly no longer interested in reading them. Like the first two in the series, there is a fantastic dark comedy in this novel somewhere, but it’s cluttered by commercial trappings.

— 3/5 —

Poems and Short Stories

As I’ve been attempting to write my own short fiction, I decided to read some literary journals. Below are all the short fiction and nonfiction pieces that I’ve read this year. I don’t really know how to rate these, so I’ll just put # after any that I particularly enjoyed.

HAD

The Maw by the Sea, by Morgan Rose-Marie
The way I remember things probably didn’t happen, by Katherine Schmidt
The Ape God Addresses Mononoke, by Steven Duong
Summer Boyfriends, by Emily Polson #
Things I Should Have Outgrown by Now, by Megan Williams
I’m Leaving a Quart of Plain Yogurt and If You Don’t Want to Eat It Do You Mind Throwing It Out?, by Anney Bolgiano
Aries Season, by Frances Klein
Time Capsule Love Song, by Tom Snarsky
IF YOU WANNA FIGHT, FIGHT, by nat raum
Eat Local, by Julia Juster
One-Way Mirror, by Dylan Evers #
Are You Down to Summon Megan Fox, by Dylan Evers #
Ode to the Texture of Grapefruit, by Kyla Guimaraes
Cupid Frontiersman, by June Villers

Permafrost

Other People’s Email, by Andy Stevens
Slow Burn, by Daniel Webre
Hills & Dales Shopping Centre, by Eric Van Hoose
Reality, by Laurence Klavan
How to not drive cross country, by Carmen Catena
Sorrow’s Delicacy, by Matthew Meduri
Waiting for the End, by Angela Miyuki Mackintosh
The Log, by Keigh Ahr
À la Carte Blanche, by Zach Powers
The Trees They Grow So High, by Jacqueline Vogtman #
In the House of Eternal Return, by Michael Sheehan
Settle Road, by Morgan Rose-Marie
Spectral, by Rebecca Meacham
incantation, by Bex Pachl
Looking at the Meat, by Angela Townsend
Chalk Boy, by Charlie Rogers
Woofin’, by Alex Juffer
To the Man Who Didn’t Humiliate Me, by Brian Benson
She Wants to Swim with Narwhals, by Billie Hinton
East Palestine, Ohio: February 2023, by Ashley Anderson

Adit

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

His fingers frolicked—not scraping, grinding ’gain ’gainst gravel, frost, but free—grasping, clasping, locking a purchase by which were four limbs propelled; this time with no doubt, no: no spectre thought so high! And rustling, tightening, the hairs… Why, ’was but sudden, inspired locomotion!

When the grasp came, then—came past skin, ’twixt heart and lungs, esophagus—such was it that underneath he scampered, scattered, scrambled the day down whole. But ’twas not so far gone, no, not as yet, and, churning beneath, and pulsing above, moved more imminent victories. One day. One day.

Cartography

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

All was grey, wet, glistening in the sun. Between bare branches of birch and aspen, distant mountains peeked from hilltops. Footsteps crunched on crust with the occasional patch of melt interjecting.

Rumbles came up the road and the runner edged left—though, not by choice—and was then muffled in the shoulder.

“Want a seltzer?” A bare hand draped dark blue papered aluminum out the window of a sedan.

There was a pause. “Uhm. Sure.” The can hopped rides. “Thanks.”

“You looked thirsty!” Her friend laughed and they were off around the bend.

After a time, the crackles resounded once more. Held in front, bobbing at each impact, a streak of green and red aurora ran across the label.

Vodka bubbly lodged in a fridge door at the cabin, not likely to escape. Then it was up stairs—varnished 2x6 slats arranged at interval between their tall brothers—to a cramped bedroom.

Thin black glass slipped out from a zipper pocket along their lower back. Cotton and denim replaced wool and synthetics, which were hung sodden from dresser knobs and bookshelf ends. The contours of hills illuminated at a touch.

A tiny triangle sat center of concentric ovals, with a path extending to the right; that one path eventually split into three. There were, also, a couple of words: Spring—where the north fork met a blue squiggle—and, some length below the crossroads—Entrance.

Battering Ram

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

Behind, a relay switched on and off, on and off, a gray sheet of fuzz six inches above. I rolled in the bag and wormed up to jiggle the headlight switch—the noise stopped.

Stomach wedged between seats, legs on an inflatable pad across the plywood that covered my belongings, I managed the zipper down and cold flooded the gap. The key was in a denim pocket on the wrong side, so took a bit more managing. A bike pedal was pressed in my side and the doors would not open for hours yet. The ignition turned, with no response.

Before bed I’d pushed the lock without taking keys. Should’ve been a spare in the Broncos wallet I’d found in Colorado, but the bugger’d fallen down the center console. I had tried for the bathroom at Walmart, then stood and shivered in my jeans and sweatshirt.

Via text, my parents had helped to consult the hivemind—no roaming in Canada. A post mentioned cab companies could do car locks, yet the man on the line had been confused. He’d suggested the RCMP, and, loopy enough, I’d taken the shot; they had scoffed, rightfully.

Eventually Mom’d rang and read the number for a tow company. They’d “get me in a minute,” third call’s the charm, I’d supposed. The desk attendant didn’t object, but had kept eyes on me all the while I’d taken refuge in the hotel lobby. Out $75, I’d got safe in the bag.

Alone among white aisles, my object was displayed on a cardboard stand. I tried not to resent the purchase. Big ceilings had my eyes fuzzy.

I plugged the battery in at the pole beside my space. The lot outlets were on, thanks to the cold. Then, it was the cold that’d caused the predicament.

Teeth separated two candy tablets out of the paper tube—a gift from the princess at the convenience counter. Though there’d been no shortage of highway strangeness, last night’s date registered in the dawn.

My father and I had built the makeshift camper in the back four months prior for an opposite journey. I’d barely lasted one after he’d flown off, and that was in the mountains.

At the doctorate I was to teach 40 freshman, kind of stealing it’d occurred. I’d gone back to say my intention and sit the conversations, then to hand over keys.

An hour on, the indicator switched green. Attaching leads, the vehicle hummed up without a fuss.

Jump-starter sat passenger side and hooked via an inverter to the lighter. I had a McGriddle from the drive-through before the AlCan, while a voice read Let the Right One In. The poor lady in hospital’d burned up.

The empty sky reflected off snow in Fort Nelson, illuminating signage green, white in blinding contrast. Lunch was footlong chicken breast, my usual, infamously plant substitute. After cold cuts’ affair with cancer I liked to think, maybe, that I’d dodged a bullet. Probably the long term effects of ORCB aren’t studied, though.

It showed 1191 miles left, the route: Fort Collins to Fairbanks, a stop in Yellowstone. Whitehorse looked at least half that, so no hope tonight. If not for the course Friday I’d rather have made it in three days instead of two. She’d written a letter for the PhD so must’ve been surprised, but hadn’t asked.

I stared at the map a little more, but no particular stood out. I’d get over the Rockies, I figured, and camp first chance afterwards.

A shiny crack in the dark needles wound up and down between sections of flat straight. The sides cut 50 feet back, it was imposing in spite of the single lanes.

After sundown I’d often seen naught but long hauls, each a dot on the horizon that would split in two. As paint lines’d start to drown we’d swap off the brights. Not one had failed me, nor I them. On the road past Fort Nelson, even in the day, I was solely among friends.

There was a lodge thing with two pumps out front. The gas contraption was worn looking metal shaped like a grandfather clock, with numbers displayed in the way of an old alarm one for a bedside. Apparently no mechanism for card payment had fit the aesthetic.

Two pickups sat parallel of the log walls, but beyond the window was pitch black and my courage bled out on the welcome mat. It was yet to use half the tank, just the staring at the map had worried me.

I don’t recall the way the mountain part looked in the light, except for flakes began to fall before the sun did. Surely that was a sight.

My modus operandi of roaring down straights, each limit taken as a hint for the next corner, started to be put to serious question. Their eyes caught by the cone’s edge, a clump of bison passed ten yards off the right door. Back at the apartment the thought would’ve been appealing.

It’d been hours since a structure or rest-stop and cell towers were in the dust. Stood on windblown crust, against the stars, the ridges overhead were outlined in the moon’s image. The infinite darkness of pavement hooked past down the hill. I’d raised my arms and twirled a while when a beam of whitish yellow cut ’cross the night.

My companion hurtled at a speed caution forbade in the best of conditions, but I fell in line, knuckles white from catching up. A few thousand pounds of hair and muscle would hardly worry such a creation.

The labeled dot was still many miles away when an orange image lit between F and E on the dash. There’d be a station there, I tried to believe, as ahead red squares careened ’round another steep bank. Each minute was an age.

The look of the dirt road did little to corroborate my silent affirmations. I nodded a salute to the receding lights and crossed left into blackness.

Down a ways was a rectangular gazebo next to what appeared like a gift shop. This pump was a less cohesive piece than the last, but the plastic slot atop the keypad was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. That was until I worked out the interface was vestigial and my joke too close to home.

I’d crawled into the bag when the crunch of tires came alongside and a flashlight cast the shadow of shirt draped handlebars. Faces and uniforms came into focus, then vanished before I could lower my hand.

I awoke drenched, as if I’d wet myself. It seemed all might become solid any second and I’d end up a statue in an episode of Scooby Doo. I scrambled the key to the slot and begged the fuel to be enough and the cold not to have got the electronics again.

My soaked clothes shed—they at least didn’t smell of urine—I struggled into long underwear and pulled over a coat and snow pants. No heat’d come off the engine yet so I drove a couple circles and parked near the woods. A trickle ran down my leg as I slithered back inside.

The gas held out ’til a beater brown Ford pulled up to the building. In behind the register, her look shared that no winter gear was containing a week without a shower. When the hose nozzle clicked, and flow took up, an interface display sprung on to count the gallons—some life after all.