The main problem with the workshop was that we were all writing in different languages. Each of us. I came to understand it as part of a study led by a professor of linguistics, though I’m not sure that story… Continue Reading
In the morning, Mrs. Anderson said: “We’re all just dustbins. You and I are no different from cobwebs or used paper plates. Everything inside us gets swept away by the wind eventually.” By afternoon, Principal Lopez was standing in the… Continue Reading
If I saw all my ex-boyfriends on the train, I would not be surprised. There’s a section called the Transbay Tube that most commuters take and it is crowded. Breathing in there can be difficult sometimes and nobody was free… Continue Reading
Singleton is a country town in New South Wales, with about sixteen thousand residents, but on a Monday lunchtime during the Covid lockdown not one of them was on the street. Amelia, lecturer in philosophy of history at Sydney University,… Continue Reading
Frank prided himself on being a conscientious drunk. Sure, after a few drinks, he’d talk a bit louder than usual, and there was that hot feeling in his ears that felt a little too cozy to be healthy. Yet all… Continue Reading
Caesar sat up, gasping, his shoulder hitting Calpurnia in the chin. The semi-familiar setting of his wife’s room made it more difficult to gain his bearings. And he still had a phantom pain in his chest and back from the… Continue Reading
I glanced into the prayer room, hoping it would be empty, but it wasn’t. Becky was there. The sun was shining quite brightly into the prayer room, and somehow Becky’s smile was brighter. Becky had invited me to pray with… Continue Reading
She had been talking with the man on the balcony long enough that the beads of condensation on their wine glasses had evaporated. The man’s face reminded her of a beach, full of reddish freckles and seashell-white teeth. Even the… Continue Reading
In that dreary mid-March, mid-semester time, Larry found it hard to get up. Long after his wife, Cheryl, left the house for her student sewing circle and after his own alarm sounded, he lay awake. He listened to a dragging… Continue Reading
I slammed the closet door and begged whatever divine entity was making the planet twirl on its axis to just give me a break for once. “I’m supposed to be in St. Croix, Mom. This really sucks.” “Stop whining,” Mom… Continue Reading