10 Pieces of Non-Advice for Young People

A reductive list for the sake of keeping up the illusion of order.

The Hobbit

It is June of 2004 in Topeka, Kansas. Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers has not yet hit theaters. Depictions of the creature Gollum in popular…

This Place

You are always alone, which had taken some getting used to. You had spent the previous nine months pouring cheap vodka down your throat…

Frequencies

The artisan shopping center in the middle of downtown projected movies in its basement on Fridays and Saturdays, so I thought that might…

The Oxygen Bar

Someone set our oxygen bar on fire, probably for insurance, probably because an oxygen bar was a stupid fucking idea, probably my…

A dance step called ‘modes of disaster technology’

Pearly Whites

I have found that secrets are best kept when your gown is bundled at the bottom of the bed. They don’t need to know who you work for…

Frisky

I didn’t give a damn if it was in the middle of a war zone, I was going to that spa. I’d been there the month prior, before hostilities had…

Windom Falls

There’s a certain feeling to a recently searched room. Suddenly, your possessions know more than you do, they’ve seen more than you…

Silver Half Bullet

In Paris, so many lies flew through the pneumatic tubes. False intelligence sucked up and spat out. Rumors of uprisings and…

Omaha’s Helen of Troy

I like to be followed. Gives a gal a kick, you know? Spices up the hours in the minivan knowing you got a black sedan…

Group A

Ah yes, the old whole double agent squared ruse… We’ve heard it before, Jensen. We won’t be fooled.

Boardwalk

There’s little difference between the gaze of my admirers and the gaze of my enemies.

The American Failure of the Metric System

We spilled more than secrets in that hotel room. Some wine, some coke, a box of…

Shark Girl

One must be lucky to mingle with the rich and powerful and avoid their snares. I was not so lucky.

W4S

You try not falling in love with a spy.

They know everything about you without any of the small talk.

Brown Recluse

Rich man, poor soldier, spy and killer, they all wept like infants on my chest. Not bad for a girl who had 34As ‘til college. I want…