I sit in front of the blank canvas. There’s only a bright sun in its top right corner. My brush sits full of lemon yellow paint, but a dark tempest dominates my mind. I get gooseflesh as I replay Chuck’s… Continue Reading
On the day my mother died I woke to rain, a rhythmic tick-tick-ticking against the windows, the first real downpour we’d had in months. I roused Oliver, crouching beside his tiny bed and tugging at the blankets, the blunt comma… Continue Reading
The rumble of a motor cut through the forest, disrupting the stillness of a cool June morning. Olen grumbled. That meant humans, and humans usually meant trouble. Over the last sixty years, their fascination with his kind’s existence had pushed… Continue Reading
Fast car to the coast, he said. Standing around in the schoolyard, we imagined a big black car, maybe with running boards, like you see in the movies. The boy didn’t say anything more. He just kept picking up chestnuts… Continue Reading
The front moved every night and with it moved the war. Shimmering and impenetrable, the front advanced and receded at eleven o’clock, sharp. Without care and concern it crossed birch forest and rivers alike, and split homes where it stopped.… Continue Reading
The news says that today’s temperature is the highest recorded in twenty-five years. With this comes a choking humidity. To relieve myself of the oppressive weather, I take off my skin, unzipping it from the back. Immediately I’m rewarded with… Continue Reading
He wakes up the next day, surprised to discover that his missing thumb is back. The doctor, who had advised Ted yesterday that she couldn’t fix the smashed digit, is even more perplexed. She’d amputated the limb just 24 hours… Continue Reading
I sit on the bottom stair of the empty house, sold sign standing by the hedge. Every item is rehomed or lying deep inside landfill on the edge of town. I can smell George’s snuff and spicy aftershave before I… Continue Reading
As the rain fell outside, Peng’s hands danced with a piece of paper, folding, smoothing, and turning. Fascinated, Ms. Lewis watched as the fourth grader turned a square into a diamond, then a kite, and finally a crane. “I’ve always… Continue Reading
The song on the radio was from high school. She and her friend used to sing it as loud as possible when they drove to soccer practice. She would’ve turned it up, but she was in the backseat of her… Continue Reading