A message from Elise Ivey assaulted my inbox, and then the peace in my life: “I know you ‘ve always had a crush on me. I’m moving to Toronto. We should hang out.” Cute enough in those high school football game nights, Elise had now evolved into something altogether tragic in magnitude: long legs and eyelashes, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Fiction 2011
Perdido — John Thornburg
1. “Did you know that rain originated in the big bang?” Sarah asks me after Spanish Class. I tell her that everything originated in the big bang. She’s quiet as we walk to the cafeteria^she eats her lunch, a plastic bag full of romaine lettuce and another containing fruit loops. Senorita Frank wore a blue … Continue reading
I Was Melvin Sanders — Marvin Shackelford
MS CAREY, TATJANA, HEY. Seems like it’s been forever. I read your book The Low End Of High School and had to write you. Last time I saw you was tenth-grade English, when I was taking that class, kind of v/ regrettably, a second time. It was the last semester you or me either one … Continue reading
Case Study — Robert Marshall
There were things Jim was good at. He wanted to think they were important, and he needed other people to confirm this. I mean if they weren’t important, he wasn’t; he was an animal on a rock hurtling through space. (He thought this at night sometimes.) But Jim Jr. was good at other stuff, stuff … Continue reading
Another Word for Serendipity — Robin Lane
He sits along in the window seat, surprised at his luck – crying, squirming babies and a pissy-nutty smell, and he is the only passenger with a seat to himself. His hair is coarse, cut short with the precision of a Marine, his eyes knot together beneath his nose, old acne his chin. His cell … Continue reading
The Ossuary — Forest Schrader
Back then, we woke up when ever we pleased. No rooster calls. No chorus of cowbells. Misha got up before me to take care of Mama, easing her gaunt frame from her bed to a bare wooden stool near the stove. It was summer, but she still felt cold. He brushed her ash-colored hair that … Continue reading
What Grows Back — Kate Ristow
I went to the dentist last month and found out that my wisdom teeth had grown back. Not all of them, just two. “No way,” said the hygienist and called the dentist in. They stood above me and squinted. I stared into the light and made a noise with my throat. The dentist removed his … Continue reading
The Homecoming — Hailey Malone
The homecoming is coming. The prodigal daughter is returning. The youngest daughter. She’s leaving Allston, that south Boston bar complex of a neighborhood where she lives on the third floor of that sagging, crumbling red brick burrow two feet from the T, the noisy teetering late T that stops at red lights and wakes her … Continue reading
Midtowners — Hailey Malone
“Fuck” is etched into the outside wall of the video store. Molly Silver traces her index finger through the “fuck” and goes into work. “You’re late,” says Ellen, long in the tooth, toothed in gaps. “No I’m not.” Ellen looks at the clock, “Yeah, I guess you’re not.” “It says ‘fuck’ on the wall, you … Continue reading
Night Walking Woman — Rochelle Weidner
He took me cause I was one of the few women of marriage age. There were too-young ones and too-old ones, some ugly, some deformed, but I had all my limbs and was half-decent to look at, so we were wed. He was ashamed about my mother and would not talk about her, and cautioned—no, … Continue reading
