The butterflies were in Anna’s head, not in her stomach — a swarm of glorious, golden images she couldn’t seem to suppress, even when she told herself to count sheep, or recite nonsense rhymes, to try and lull herself to… Continue Reading
I want to swim in the ocean with her. But I can’t. She’s sitting in my lap scrolling through the images of her mother and me. The computer screen is a useless time machine that can’t change the past. The… Continue Reading
I was heading south. Vegas, to be exact. Five hundred hard-earned dollars were burning a hole in my pocket. That cheap-ass O’Reilly had finally coughed up what he owed for the two weeks I’d spent busing crates around in his… Continue Reading
This blanket would be unmemorable except you recognize this as your favorite pattern and remember where, still new to knitting needles, you used to drop stitches and clumsily fix them up. Your fingertips know this sturdy, not-soft yarn without touching… Continue Reading
(London, Highgate psychiatric ward, 1995.) Rosa chokes on a wall of smoke as she enters the TV room. Through the jaundiced haze she makes out 8 or 9 men in plastic chairs, staring fixedly at a screen. Persil Automatic gets… Continue Reading
My grandmother’s hands are pale with slender fingers and arthritic joints that never stopped her from doing whatever she wanted despite some occasional pain and swelling. They looked exactly as I pictured mine would, in another fifty years or so,… Continue Reading
Shelby agreed to the surgery only after the two biggest narcissists in her life, Dr. Schrodinger and Dr. Elks, advised that her weight had reached an apocalyptic level. In truth, she had always been obese — unrepentantly feasting — or… Continue Reading
She had come at lunch for help on her essay. He made sure the door was left open. No reason. That’s just what you did these days. Sarah was a quiet, sweet girl. One of his Honors kids. He was… Continue Reading
Their uneven line inches forward, seventeen concerned volunteers trespassing lawfully in dew-stained sneakers. The morning is bright, unseasonably warm, but she can still see her breath. Maggie walks and watches, barely aware of the faraway scent of burning cedar nearby… Continue Reading
There is a young tree who lives near the edge of a forest. He is small — a side effect of his age — and he has very few branches. But his leaves are a gorgeous shade of bright green,… Continue Reading