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Fiction
Joshua and Eric, they are good boys. Boys are easier. The boys don’t give me much trouble. Of course, Eric is spoiled, but he is small and doesn’t know. Joshie is my best. Joshie tells me, “Mommy, I love you so much.” He doesn’t forget the garbage or his laundry. When I say, “Mop the floors!” Joshie mops the floors. When I say, “Vacuum the car. Now!” Joshie vacuums the car.
Fiction
I have been pigging out on Oreos lately. They aren’t good for me. My doctor warns me that my nocturnal habits are wrong. Too many snacks. Too little sleep. I quote that boy-devil, Bart Simpson, and tell him not to have a kitten.
Fiction
I was an only child. Have no merry assumptions. I was not an only child by design. Can a girl ever be an only child by choice? It was the era of death and disease. None of amma’s children survived to become my brothers and sisters.
Fiction
Another car goes by; this time, the puppies move together toward the shiny wheel and break off in sync like a flock of geese. The leader sends out signals, and they move in unison. Finally, they stop and stare at me. I would take one back home with me if I could. They were that cute.
Fiction
All they could see was the long lay of ocean blue; a spotless, looming sky; the sun, and the gliding form of seabirds: shearwaters and petrels and other gull-type aviators, tiny white citizens of the bleak and luminous desolation. Beautiful, Humbert thought. If it were not for doom, it would be beautiful.
Fiction
My mother made me take piano lessons from Pastor James’ wife, Belinda, on Sundays. She was nice enough and always smelled of perfume. She’d hug me, give me a sugar cookie, and we’d get to business. I knew very early on in my piano-lesson days that I lacked discipline for such practices.
Fiction
As he settles in, Olivia and Logan catch up about their weekends, both of which involved all things spooky. One of the best parts of autumn is Halloween, and it’s probably only natural that those who work in the funeral industry have some kind of affinity towards the holiday. Every department decorates the parts of the offices the guests can’t see.
Fiction
I couldn’t fathom Dad telling Poppy something he hadn’t told me: he was the only relationship in my life built entirely on honesty. He was the one who had encouraged me to travel and live somewhere new while I was young; he was the person I called when I needed help with my taxes or choosing a 401K plan.
Fiction
“Need some help?” “No, I don’t need your goddamn help, and yes, I took my medication today, thank you very much Nurse Hobson. Go have a seat in the family room. I’ll be in in a minute.” “It’s not a sin to ask for help, you know.”
Fiction
Mother’s hands hide her face. Her mother, with her arm around her, repeats the same sentence over and over. The television blares, reporters reporting the rig was aflame, exploded, and sunk. They say they’re all gone. No survivors. They say it over and over.
Fiction
The next day, I asked her what she meant. She stooped down, and I felt the warm air leave her lungs in a soft wind. “Sometimes when our insides don’t match our outsides, our bodies become prisons. When that happens, we become sad. My insides don’t match my outsides, love.”
Fiction
What if they did hear me far away, in France, India, or China? What if they ran around yelling, “Who is making that noise? Where is it coming from? What is it?” Maybe they would think it was an animal and set traps, or the radio and look for a different station.
Fiction
It is possible that the grandmother forgot the name of the cafe where she and the child were to meet Rose. It is possible she was lost, confused, or maybe dozed off. And, yes, it is possible that she never intended to meet Rose for lunch.
Fiction
My name is Cecil Alfa Brown. Caroline told me I should write every day to keep my mind sharp. As silly as it sounds, I will do it for her. She may not know it, but she is my best and only friend left in this world, besides Phil.
Fiction
His brother Dan had noticed these changes in James. Dan noticed James had been visiting the doctor as frequently as someone just diagnosed with cancer. At first, Dan worried something was wrong, and asked if there was anything he should know about.
Fiction
“Our tailoring needs didn’t go beyond the occasional shirt or a pair of trousers. I got my black bespoke tuxedo with fine stripes stitched there. Paragon, strictly for gents, did not sell clothes, only offered tailoring service. The head tailor himself was the owner.
Fiction
She crosses the front yard, pushes the gate open, reaches the graveled sidewalk, and sits down on the curb. The heat weighs heavily on the street; molten mirages shimmer on the pavement. Stilled air, tampered sounds.Christiane’s kitchen, with its human comforts and knowable scale, seems far now.
Fiction
The third time he put on the shirt he didn’t look in the mirror at all, and that almost made it okay, except that he knew that if he looked in the mirror, he would see his frizzy hair and his pasty skin turned blotchy…
Fiction
Janice was scarcely 30 when she came to Claresboro, a newly licensed veterinarian joining Dr. Quigley’s small-animal practice. We knew her family from a long way back–her mother grew up here before moving to the city, and her grandma Paula still owns the flower shop on Minton Street.
Fiction
“You must go to a lot of Book Circle Parties,” I remarked. “Don’t you?” he asked, eyes surveying the rest of the crowd, looking for someone more malleable than me.
Fiction
Mule carcasses give up ash. Thick and dark. It swirls and swells in the violet sky like a great murmuration. The screams of the mules have subsided, the air thick with the smell of their roasting meat. It is unbearable to these starving people.
Fiction
In some ways, I hate what I do, though my feelings have never been distinct. It is more of an unease that creeps into my mind when I see my planet so far beneath me, and, surrounded by the boxes and boxes of products and resources that fill the storage space of my cable car…
Fiction
I watched with a sullen expression as she struggled to lift her right leg, gingerly rubbing the area of swollen flesh where I’d kicked her thigh. She placed delicate fingers along her bottom lip, still red and swollen from my punch of a few days ago.
Fiction
And so, the astronomer and the inquisitor pulled and tilled and spread and sowed until Emile’s backyard was one colossal labyrinth of garlic and radishes and roses and towering sunflowers that shaded the humble beds of lettuce and trumpeted the arrival of the spring winds.