http://theannalog.com A story every day? Fri, 02 May 2008 22:54:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en You’re probably wondering about the mess. First of all, the red stuff is goat blood. When you live on a farm you have access to this kind of thing. I did not even have to kill the goat. At least, she seemed alive when I left her. ... http://theannalog.com/2008/05/02/hope-youre-enjoying-this-nice-weather Bread molds before the expiration date: someone will catch a cold this winter. The dishtowel has a hole in it: something missing will be found. Scissors fall with their blades shut: a guest is coming. Scissors fall with their blades open: someone is having murderous thoughts. http://theannalog.com/2008/03/31/household-omens This story is part three of three. Part two is “Emily’s Notes.” Kids are always putting me in their pictures. I don’t mind; I feel for them. Their fathers, doctors, hand-wringing mothers — they all get it wrong. I’m not what goes into their crooked little skulls. I am what comes ... http://theannalog.com/2008/03/17/the-dark-birds-notes This story is part two in a series. Part one is “Sociopath’s Notes.” After they took her I went back to my old name. I cut my hair close to my scalp, gave up milk, became austere. I had lived so long in a parody of boldness. “You can’t hurt me,” ... http://theannalog.com/2008/03/03/emilys-notes I committed my first murder the night my sister was born. They were going to name her Emily. I found a rabbit in the backyard and I pulled the ears off and waited for her to die. Afterwards they named my sister Charlotte instead and I knew ... http://theannalog.com/2008/02/25/sociopaths-notes When my period came again, a day ahead of schedule, I carved myself a baby out of cheese. I only had enough for the head at first, so I had to go out and get two more blocks and melt the whole thing together with a candle. You probably ... http://theannalog.com/2008/02/11/cheese-baby The night was so silent, to speak felt like tossing a stone down a deep well. “How’s your wife?” I asked, and then winced at the echoes. “Tired,” said Edson. “Teddy’s not a good sleeper. You know how it is.” “They start going the whole night when they’re eleven months or so,” I ... http://theannalog.com/2008/02/05/snowplows When my sister’s baby was born with no legs, just little toes coming out of her hips, and my brother went out for a drink and came back with viral meningitis, and my father started raving about a railroad yard, my mother blamed the wind. And when my father left ... http://theannalog.com/2008/01/08/simoom Of course I loved him at first; when he looked at me, his eyes were full of begging. But later, when he’d roll onto me at night, touching me so companionably, like I was a question already asked and answered — then I began to count the days till ... http://theannalog.com/2007/12/17/the-frontier-brides-confession I loved you the way a woman loves an alien that crashes in her yard. At first the alien is frightening in its unfamiliarity, but soon there comes a period of mystified joy. The woman is amazed that there can exist a body so unlike hers. She ... http://theannalog.com/2007/12/10/husband