The crash had crumpled the carbon fiber frame, shredding the car’s chassis. Fire, extinguished now, had melted glass, scorched titanium intakes, and bubbled the smartpaint into a gooey ooze that still flickered in spots with colorful video images of cool… Continue Reading
Tara was just returning to work after lunch. She’d eaten a turkey sandwich, drunk her lemon iced tea, and walked six laps around the park before watching the ducks for the final five minutes of her one-hour break. The same… Continue Reading
I forgot to have breakfast before I left. That combined with rising, overwhelming nerves about my upcoming appointment — I had a profound fear of having my eyes poked and prodded, those hulking optometry machines full of refracting lenses, deeply… Continue Reading
I saw you last night. It was after the operation and you wore a pink nightgown. You were cutting your toenails with a pair of silver scissors. You look good, I said. So, the operation went well? You were gathering… Continue Reading
Dear Clarissa, Do not be surprised to receive a letter from the stepsister you once scorned. How could I not write when I heard of the terrible reversal of your fate? As I picture you sitting in a dark, dank… Continue Reading
May was holding her mother’s hand and then she wasn’t. The moment May removed her mitten to reach for a cookie in her pocket, they slipped away from each other like water slips through fingers. They had been watching the… Continue Reading
Thomas Stearns Murray, playground pugilist, defender of younger sister, instigator of the sixth-grade riot, Warner High shortstop and expellee, premarital experimentation enthusiast, keeper of the barometric pressure log, repentant fellow traveler, aspiring shipping magnate, burier of parents, inheritor of wealth,… Continue Reading
When they hauled her body into the wall cavity, they assumed she was dead. The two men came barging into her apartment just past midnight. They’d known it was a construction site, figured it would be empty. Desperation had driven… Continue Reading
I watched her every morning while I cooked. That woman in the red saree. She was the proud owner of two sarees … both red … one with yellow polka dots and the other with a green border. I knew… Continue Reading
The keeper of the shed by the forest met us on the path. She was expecting us because it was Midwinter Eve. “I have lit a fire in the grate and there are plenty of logs stacked up outside.” She… Continue Reading