When I find little babies left alone by their mothers, I take them and kiss them until their bright baby eyes shine with laughter, with joy. I carefully tuck the [...]
Fiction
Thorndyke’s Folly
Shooting this press conference is the first worthwhile thing Francis Thorndyke will do in twenty-three years of life, and if he buggers it up he’ll forfeit his right ever to shoot anything more worthwhile than country bumpkins chasing cheeses down hills. His editor has vouchsafed this to him with the aid of an evocative metaphor involving bollocks, barbecues, and bamboo skewers. From my cubbyhole in the back of his mind…
Safety
“Care to buy me a drink?”
“No.”
Sandra blinked. Clearly this man had not learned the script, and without the script she didn’t see how he thought he had a chance. His [...]
Peter’s Shell
A three hundred foot-tall lighthouse with a red barbershop stripe made no sense in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, but Wendy wanted it, so it was there. Lighthouses were [...]
Within the Castle Walls
Beauty could no longer remember how long she had lived in the Beast’s castle. It had been late winter when she came; she was sure of that, for it had [...]
Pandora’s Blog
November 25
I got a bio internship at Portland State University starting next quarter, working for Professor H. He has a USDA grant for “Colony Collapse Disorder of the Western Honeybee,” [...]
Scavenger
If you go back to the same pet store every week, month after month, to buy a single goldfish, the clerks will start to get suspicious. They will think that [...]
Walking Point
Three months after I stepped on the land mine, I saw my dead son. He was slim and dark-haired, serious-faced as only a twenty-year-old can be. Without a word, he stepped into my Rambam hospital room, lifted my truncated body into a wheelchair, and pushed me down to the sea…
The Vicissitudes of Time
“What’s it like to die?” she said.
“Do you want to find out?” he said.
He had met her at a roadside diner, on his way to Yuma. A little further down [...]
After
The glare drilled its way through Colin’s eyes as he landed with newborn-calf grace on his knees.
“Ow—Jesus!” He choked, clutching his left leg with one hand and shielding his eyes [...]
The Moth Collector’s Daughter
Remember, remember when you were born.
When Ti-ti was born, the Aunties came to anoint her with their declarative magic.
“Oh, her fingers are so short she won’t ever play piano,” said [...]
B’alam
Her grandmother had traveled through the jungle and stood under that same dark canopy many years before. She had been younger than Ix Kan when she walked this path. Thus, [...]
The Urban Parasite
My father, a compulsive liar, once told me that a person dies every time a leaf falls from a tree. If you catch a leaf before it touches the ground, you save a person’s soul. It’s early September in Chicago, and I’ve already let thousands of souls perish. I walk to work, from one graffiti-stained side of Wrigleyville to the other. The sidewalks, congested with foot traffic an hour before, are now clear. The only people I encounter are…
Brother Zimmy Fly
Bob and I dragged ourselves out of bed and were at the church by five, but six other families had camped out overnight and were already in line. Macy was [...]