self-raising flour caster sugar mixed spice butter lard currant egg milk bread potatoes peas Bisto Delyth looks at the slanted writing, the looping gs, and the capitalized B for Bisto with its flourishes, making even this common-or-garden shopping list look… Continue Reading
I’ll always remember the way his car smelled, like stale Pall Malls and Vicks VapoRub. It was memories of court-ordered, every-other-weekend visits, chicken fingers and ice cream for dinner from the Dairy Queen, and peanut butter cups baked into the… Continue Reading
In Bensonville, nobody wants to raise the dead anymore, so they leave them on the porch with the rest of the recyclables. Sometimes, the dead are wrapped in quilts or given a few crackers and a bit of water while… Continue Reading
My dad never learned how to swim. As a kid, it always made me nervous because he had to drive over a bridge to get to work. What if he drove into the lake? Or what if he pulled over… Continue Reading
Randle lowered his Stetson and nodded. An after-image singed his retina as he crossed through the gateway to the back of the queue. Along a dusty road, a line of people snaked towards a diner with a neon sign blinking… Continue Reading
I see her in the twisted remains of the dermatologist’s office, surrounded by ash and steel. Smoke still hangs low in the air. The fire marshal gave the all-clear to return early in the morning, and now, as the sun… Continue Reading
…and it should have been Kokura, but it was overcast, though it was cloudy here, too, but not cloudy enough, so by the time I returned home from business, it was all gone, everything, and like so many others, I… Continue Reading
He loves bright, cold nights like this. I press my form tight against the shadows as a cloud of rank breath steams into the darkness. The watch-wyverns pause at the alley’s entrance and my heart drops, though I know they… Continue Reading
Juanita eases the old woman into the rocker, its tiny nails tightly securing the branches and twigs that form its construction. The slats of the chairback shape the old woman’s spine, sitting her as straight as she’d been, so many… Continue Reading
I did not know my zayde was a writer until the day of my bat mitzvah in March 1989. Everyone was congratulating me on my bat mitzvah but also him on his newest book. For my bat mitzvah, he gave… Continue Reading