Looking back, no-one could remember when the clown first appeared on the corner by the park. Everyone agreed that it was sometime last spring and,…
A lean man of average height with intelligent eyes set far apart, a narrow chin, and a mouth that sloped downward at its corners, August…
Every evening, she set up the altar afresh, because she couldn’t leave it out overnight. Even if it didn’t rain, the dew at dawn was…
“There’s not supposed to be a test,” I said. The man behind the table gave me a skewed look, his mouth turned in a malignant…
Alan finds a glade with no overhead branches that might come crashing down if winds blow up. But hard ground, rough with exposed pebbles, frustrates…
Jordan chewed on her pinky nail until it started to bleed. “Shit!” She reached over Avery’s lap, opened the glove box, and pulled out a…
When I was growing up, the Chicago suburbs of Chicago ranked within a hierarchy of goodness and desirability. You had the ones on the bottom…
The summer after 6th grade, my lizard died. My parents had never owned reptiles before and the vet we took our dog to wouldn’t cremate…
“Hey! Where’d that woman put my fan?” Mimi yelled. “That woman—she took it. I know she did. She’s always taking my stuff.” Ruth held her…
A dozen donuts popped and sizzled in the deep fryer. As they floated into one another, Cosmo took out a pink box from under the…
It’s just an unknown web journal that probably no one reads, but something I wrote has been published. I’m thrilled. You would be, too. I…
Their mother knocked on the door and leaned inside quick enough to catch Susan swaying to “The Wallflower” playing on her transistor radio. Elyse, lying…
I noticed the paint coming off the white iron table in the lawn. I had made two steaming cups of coffee, baked some shortbread for…
The soft, wet grass beneath our rain boots made squelching sounds as we straggled behind the tour group led by a small, dark-haired, Italian woman….
In those days, there were no wheelie bins, there was no recycling: you put the trash out in round metal cans of the sort you…
“I need three Model B’s by this afternoon,” said George Oxburn, “And Harrison, nothing fancy.” Oxburn pointed to a sign posted above Ronald Harrison’s cubicle:…
‘I have been thinking about getting a cat for some time,’ my husband said between sips of tea. I looked up in surprise. I had…
Nandu turns five today. I’m given a list of things to get for the birthday party. Crayons, extra paper cups, Scotch tape, board pins, apples,…
When he was five years old, my grandfather discovered how to converse with the dead. It was a time for believing in Argentina. The Man…
Not too many memories here, in these chic walls caught in the daily grind. But between the walls there are those truths—whistling through the subway…