A young boy kept his neighbor’s foot under his bed. It lay among the dust bunnies, idle, bereft, still wearing its oxblood leather shoe. The boy had not forgotten the foot, but he rarely took it out to look at anymore. The boy had stolen …
The ocean reverberated swells and dips, then made skin to shelter in, like bread dough when it’s rising makes a crust, or like surface-ice that buckles from beneath. The skin thickened to a turtle’s shell run through with fissures, through which ocean frothed and cooled, …
I’m haunted by diabetes. Metformin twice daily. Finger pricks determine glucose levels after testing strips absorb the sticky drops. This disease is god’s punishment for gobbling fudge at Martha’s Vineyard. Sugared butter on the waterfront shriveled my kidneys and tainted my blood. I cringe whenever …
You hand me a glass of wine walk across the floor and stand in front of a mirror and I realize I have never seen your reflection before and thought it might be a good idea to capture this moment learn a bit more about …
we watched free solo about the guy who climbed el capitan with no ropes always one finger grip away from death and as we sat glued to our computer screen for two hours without moving as the next american hero begins his ascent and remember …
A truck with Oregon plates arrives in San Diego at dusk. When the driver slides open the cargo door, his Christmas trees are coated with lumps of snow and sheets of ice. There’s so much white he imagines an artificial forest smothered in flocking spray. …
Stuie’s always been nothing special. Even he knows, deep down, he is a consistently mediocre kid with straight Cs, not particularly handsome, and so-so in sports. In games, he eventually gets picked, but only after a long time, the kind of player where other kids …
She was standing in line. The line had rounded the corner of the street. She didn’t actually see the beginning of the line, or where it led to exactly. She just ducked in line, right past the corner. It was the middle of the day. …
“It’s ok,” said the girl, setting her books on the counter. “I’m home-schooled.” The librarian would not have even considered the girl’s age at the time of day until the girl herself drew attention to it. But it couldn’t be denied. She was the only girl in …
Sunny. It’s always sunny. Buskers sing, pitch their CDs. Vendors sell cut fruit, fragrant sausages and onions. John slumps in his wheel-chair, one foot on the sidewalk, the other shot off in Vietnam, then the leg amputated up to his knee. The subway empties. People …
