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
“I thought she’d dozed off.” It was the excuse I’d been making all week. Tim was standing next to me, gazing at the body in the coffin. Above the fragrance of hothouse flowers rose a faint scent of mothballs, an… Continue Reading
Ruffles knew something was wrong, something below her left armpit. It showed itself in the scent of her sweat, a sort of asymmetry in the chemical shape of her body. How could he tell her? He barked and growled at… Continue Reading
That was what they called him, anyway; those few neighbors who lived a mile away from his hermitage. The hermitage was one of those corrugated iron bomb shelters, semicircular and stifling. He had sat on top of it for five… Continue Reading
Wisconsin State Park Ranger Smith rolled up on a group of campers standing outside a women’s outhouse. The building trembled despite its sturdy cinderblock construction and steel door. As he stepped out of the truck, a vile combination of rotten… Continue Reading
“Auntie Mary, you’re hurting my hand.” I was jolted to the present by the complaints of my niece. Her voice cut through all the noise of the fair that surrounds us. Josie is trying to tug her hand free from… Continue Reading