The radio coughed and sputtered. Perhaps, muttered. So many rhyming sounds in the language. The vehicle, perhaps an automobility, exhaled too. I prayed it wouldn’t expire. I needed it for two more hours. Without tunes my creative juices evaporate. It’s… Continue Reading
Ms. Marken, the substitute teacher, was doing a math demonstration. Julie had finished the entire math unit two days before, so that was boring. Instead, Julie had taken out her Kindle and was ignoring the sub in the spirit of… Continue Reading
Hania grew up in a southwest Detroit neighborhood where most people understood English well enough to follow radio broadcasts of Joe Louis fights and fireside chats. But they were far more comfortable conversing in Polish. It was the language of… Continue Reading
Inside the poem was safe and quiet, but the word knew its time was limited. Even here, amid the heady chaos of surrealism tinged with psychedelia, staying still for too long could be fatal. Peering out from between two random… Continue Reading
The bridge to my mother erodes in word-shaped chunks: broken sentences and hesitant pauses. Frustration traces the downward curve of Ma-Ma’s mouth, a bow with no arrows left to fire. “Na ge,” she says. Brittle fingers tug at her hair,… Continue Reading
Twenty-five years of marriage, and Freddie had never once told Ellen she’d had a good idea. “Not a bad idea,” he’d say, if she suggested two-for-one night at the Taco Palace, or “This isn’t bad at all,” when she served… Continue Reading
“What’s wrong with her?” “We don’t know.” Dr. Alejandro Benetti shook his head in frustration. Every time an economic opportunity convinced him to leave the capital, it was the same story. Small-town nurses were always extremely willing and helpful, but… Continue Reading
Prof. Bouillon opened the box with utmost care. The jar nestling in purpose-made packaging was unique. That it had been discovered by a caver who was a friend of the leading archaeologist had been the merest coincidence and the greatest… Continue Reading