In the fall of that year, the circus came to town. They carried a dead clown with them. This wasn’t a sideshow exhibit. The circus had some of that kind of thing, yes, but mostly they had feats of strength and daring. They had pretty girls dancing through the air on a high wire or…Continue Reading “Words”
A tremor in the ocean bed flung a giant wave across the land, carrying me beyond the reach of the tide, leaving me stranded on the shore. I crawled into a cave high on the cliff face and licked my wounds. Small crawling things that shared my dwelling provided me with nourishment. I fed, waited,…Continue Reading “I Came From the Deep”
3:43 AM The Subject awakens with stomach cramps and immediately selects from a list of possible illnesses, some of which are life threatening, as to the cause of the discomfort: dyspepsia, gastroenteritis, Hepatitis A, B, C, cirrhosis, pancreatitis. He mentions Duff McKagan suffered from acute pancreatitis which “Caused his pancreas to swell to the size…Continue Reading “Gray Matters”
Days after Miranda began middle school, strangers started thanking her. Always it was boys who did this, boys she’d never met and who were not in her classes, boys with jumbled teeth and missing fingers, boys with limps and tics and roaring coughs. Without saying why, they thanked her in supermarkets and in restaurants, at…Continue Reading “The Girl Who Was a Doorway”
Even the best things come to an end. For Aaron, that meant closing down all of the browser windows and reporting to Mr. Jensen for the final time. Sitting in a cubicle made Aaron’s head want to explode, but it’s almost five and the mood went from a sour atmosphere of murmurs and fidgeting pencils…Continue Reading “Liquidation”
As the sun poured warmth down her spine, the chilled metal of the bike handle pressed into her palm, and the passing wind tugged at the edges of her shirt. The street before her was doused in sunlight, the pastel houses stained lemon against the approaching dusk. As she turned onto Maple, the pounding of…Continue Reading “Wind Ridden”
Emily watched the strobe-like pulse of the ceiling fan as she lay on the mattress—the only motion in the room. An image of a needle appeared on the back of her eyelids while she slept, as if to remind her of the inevitable: every day she traveled up and down the concrete floors would culminate…Continue Reading “Within a Glance”
Brutus, the family’s long-ignored Dalmatian, pattered into the dead Boy’s room. The lad’s clothes sat on brown bed sheets. A folded shirt, and pants. Mom and Dad shooed Brutus away when he begged for love. No pats. No scratching behind the ears. That gave him an idea. If he wore the Boy’s clothes, he’d be…Continue Reading “Be the Boy”
Wednesday October 24 1962 I was seventeen. “Happy birthday, Celia,” Shirley said. “We’re celebrating tonight.” She and Kath took me to the Kong Nam Restaurant: flocked wallpaper, Formica tables and lanterns. I gorged myself on chop suey and chips, and couldn’t face the fortune cookies, so I wrapped one of the crispy oracles in a…Continue Reading “Ticket to Ride”
This is a man who will live forever, the barber knows. He is waiting by the shop when the barber arrives, weight shifting foot to foot, staring up at the pole and wire of the new tram line. “Electricity, Jakob.” The barber says, in lieu of greeting. “The world is changing.” The vagrant nods. Gnarled…Continue Reading “The Barber Knows”