Orange streaks the black sky, and the sun burns as red as Mrs Holt’s face when she shouts at the class. I stand beside my mother. Outside, Dad is wrapped head to toe in fabric, and buckets of water sit… Continue Reading
I went home with a researcher, a testudinologist. A Turtle Man, he called himself. I met him at a club, where he resembled the creature he collected obsessively: time-saddened and stationary. I needed a boyfriend, and something about his sloped… Continue Reading
I began to feel better around the time that there was an outbreak of bacterial meningitis on campus and my boyfriend refused to kiss me (because he was scared of the meningitis). It was warm for February in New York.… Continue Reading
The sign outside the bar read “Cheap Drinks! Free Pool! Live Music Combo!,” but the combo on stage consisted of one guy in a Santa hat with a Casio keyboard. He was singing John Denver’s “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk… Continue Reading
When someone popped a champagne cork at the Christmas party, Carl dived under the table. No one said a word. The dairy lot laughed nervously, the butchers raised their eyebrows and carried on with their conversations, and the dot.com drivers… Continue Reading
It was curious, Dr Harold felt, that he should have been working on his Fibonacci paper that December. As a rule, he tried not to notice workplace festive japes. The explanation he felt most comfortable giving himself was that it… Continue Reading
My mother would start unpacking the Christmas decorations on what we now call Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers stampede stores.) The smell of leftover turkey still permeated our house as she filled the air with a regular… Continue Reading
“We could always just run it over,” Patricia said. I wasn’t paying much attention. The November sun was smudgy white against a harsh gray sky, and I was thinking how very lonely the sun looked, how barren eons of existence… Continue Reading
The silence was a few minutes deep. The pair had surrendered to it when they ran out of stories about mutual friends from the three years since their last rendezvous. The boy used the lull to sip his americano; today’s… Continue Reading
Evening sunlight leaks through curtains and blankets the floor in soft, gold light. It flows across Buddy’s fluffy blonde fur, granting him the warm summer naps he loves so much. Minutes pass and hints of purple and orange take the… Continue Reading