She spoke sometimes like shaving cream. Her lips opened in an “O,” the words landing in a pungent spiral in his cupped hand, ready to be spread onto his face and then rinsed down the drain. “Why are we going?… Continue Reading
“You disappeared,” she said. “Yes,” I said. “Not for long, though.” “Where’d you go?” Lily asked. Most of her accent was gone. Some of it remained. “Far from here,” I said. “Couldn’t leave the city for that long though, could… Continue Reading
The warehouse was a menagerie of costumes, each section sorted by genus and each rack coordinated by color. Equines began with a snow white palomino and ended with a midnight Shetland, all clean and neatly organized. The kingdom stretched an… Continue Reading
“Caroline! CAAAROLINE! Hey, do you–” “Amy? Amy, whoa. Careful! Are you?” “Blasted! Toasted! Roasted! Crunk! Gone! Beyond… gone.” “Jeez, stand still! What did you drink?” “Whatever Mike put into that cup.” “Some brother.” “Some brother! My brother! He sent me… Continue Reading
Lena is twenty-seven and vital. She carries her blond baby against her hip and walks, chin straight and heel first, through the constellation of grey office cubicles. A stain of drool spreads on her shoulder as a small baby hand… Continue Reading
You are a version of a person that you cannot remember, a translation of a translation of a translation. You are staring at an email instead of reading it, but it doesn’t matter because you already know what it says.… Continue Reading
Memories of my first day of kindergarten rise like a bubble from oceanic depths toward sunlight. I’m approaching a giant white door ensconced in the towering brick building that is Middleton Elementary. Mike Jamison stands there nervously alone as I… Continue Reading
Harold sits, thinking. Not his best skill but something he does more and more often these days. Which, given his current situation, does provide some modicum of hope. He used to have it all. Only he didn’t know it at… Continue Reading
It was a big hole, deep, long, narrow. The dirt that had come out of it mounded some distance away, nearly black against the equal mounds of snow plowed from the roadway. He stood at its edge, just outside the… Continue Reading
Bob woke up early. In the shower, he rehearsed his ten o’clock presentation, a one-page map in his mind, a landscape he would negotiate for an hour and a half — Haines’ Iceberg Theory, the way he had been planning… Continue Reading