Author's note: These are stories that fit into the status message box on Facebook. I'm not exactly sure why I started writing them. I'd read some Twitter fiction and thought the same idea might work on the Book, which gives you 420 characters instead of just 140. I've been writing one a day and my mom likes them, at least. A few months ago she left a comment on my wall asking "What are these, facestories?" I quickly hit the "like" button.

(1)

Instead of buying things Lou takes digital pics and prints them out and places them in the places where the things would go: pics of knives in the knife holder, pics of cups in cupboard, pics of garbage in the garbage can. Lying on the pic of her bed Lou pales and flattens, starving, and takes her own digital pic to print and put in her place.

(2)

Uhoh went to war. Got captured by the enemy and woke up in a chair getting tortured, Uhoh. The man doing it was his long lost brother, Haha. I know you! You're my brother! Uhoh pleaded, Let me go! We'll go see our mother together! Shot Uhoh in the chest, Haha. Watching the spy die he saw his own face on the corpse, Haha. Lost in blood, Uhoh.

(3)

Society goes to the liquor store. Needs wine for his girlfriend Ana's potluck. Society is doomed--having blown all his money playing online poker, he knows he can't afford wine. So society hides a bottle of white in his coat and walks out. The cashier catches him and calls the police. Our poor thief calls Ana from jail. She asks: Society, what's wrong with you? He says: Don't hate the player, hate the game.

(4)

My love looks at me and my heart breaks out of my chest. It jumps on the table and salsa dances with our salsa, mash-potatoes with our mashed potatoes, and cuts a rug with our butter knife. Joy is ours. Then my heart gets greedy: opens its veiny mouth, eats my love, and leaves us both for dead in the diner, dancing its eating dance out the door.

(5)

Ta's mother was human trafficked to Dubai and he learned the world. Ta's brother worked an iPhone factory and killed himself and he learned the world. Ta's father was stabbed in a drunken knife fight and he learned the world. Ta's sister died from toxic drinking water and he learned the world. Ta starved himself to death in a cage outside the President's house and he taught the world.

(6)

Adam Smith walked his pet polar bear Hand through the arctic. Wearing matching speedos they discussed the northern lights. Colorful, said Smith. Magical, said Hand. The pair growled with pleasure. They came upon a community penguins, pooping white poop and mating. Hand ate one and disappeared. Smith, distraught, exclaimed: Hand, you're invisible! Then he damned all penguins and wrought the market as revenge.

(7)

I befriended a graffiti artist named I. We went to brunch. I ordered an omelet and I got huevos rancheros. We ate and talked, I and I. I hate the conformists, I said. I know! I replied. They don't stop copying my graffiti designs, I complained. It's such a shame, I commiserated. Just be yourself—paint what you paint, be what you are, I recommended. I sighed: If only it were that simple.

(8)

The cafe plays indie rock. The kitchen, bachata. For Juan outside=English, inside=Spanish. Today a woman at her laptop. Beautiful, skinny jeans, pale skin. Juan leaves the kitchen to talk to her. In the hall near the bathrooms, a passage between where musics mix, Jose, line chef, asks, Que haces loco? Juan waits in the noise between worlds. The woman leaves. Hasta la proxima, corazon, he says returning to his music.