I meet Angel by the metal payphone outside 7-11. I stroll outside with my breakfast, a giant-sized blueberry Slurpee. It is a sugared oasis from the cod I slice and fry and serve and, after my shift ends, the cod I steal from the food court.
Read MoreATV stands for all-terrain vehicle stands for Tilley Baker circa 2007 stands for eighteen years old stands for captain of the soccer team stands for seat straddled by the operator stands for low pressure tires stands for around 6:30 at night stands for dusk stands for off road escape stands for farm access road stands for chain across a farm access road …
Read MoreThe graveyard is full of music and movies, a field of dead grass scattered with headstones made from vinyl sleeves and DVD cases, but this is the first short story you’ve put in the ground. The first book to mark a tomb.
Read MoreThe conversation turns to cockroaches, which Francine has a mortal fear of. When earlier she walked into the kitchen of the bar Anna and Yeorgos had just signed a lease on, she let out an almighty shriek. Dead cockroaches everywhere. The place had sat empty for two years, so no wonder. There were more in the bathrooms.
Read MoreA little purple wildflower that waits for me beneath the helmet on his motorcycle seat the first time he picks me up. The ride we catch later back to town with a man who calls himself Little Bear after we lose the keys to the motorcycle. The smell of fake pine and musty cigarettes that emanates from the upholstery while I am pressed between men I hardly know.
Read MoreWe're in the dining room, sitting around a big wooden table with heavy legs, meant for a family to gather around it and break bread. We are a family, I think, in some ways. There are six of us, seven, eight, and the room is filled with our voices. I’m sitting on his knee. He rests his heavy head on my shoulder and talks around me.
Read MoreAt what point in fame-dom is it no longer acceptable to go to the Cheesecake Factory for a fancy dinner? This is not a reference to kink culture. By fame-dom (second syllable pro-nounced like dumb), I mean how famous can you be and still deem a chain restaurant upscale. And by famous, I don’t just mean actresses and musicians. I mean CEO’s of local nonprofits, cat whisperers, professors, and public servants, from street sweeper to Justice Antonin Scalia.
Read MoreIt was when the Division of Family Services took us away from our mother that I became my mother and a thousand mothers, all lined up against the wall to be shot in the head.
Read MoreI see him every morning now. Who? you ask. Well no one you would know. Just a boy who turns to smile at me before he stretches taut his bow, ready to kill the lion in the shadows. The lion that would kill me if the boy didn’t kill him first, the only lion in all existence. The rest are mere mirages.
Read MoreIt was cold in the way that only Iceland can be cold. The houses in Iceland aren’t made of wood. It’s a volcanic island and therefore all the buildings need to be built to a certain code, to withstand, I guess, volcanos and other seismic activity. So the houses are stone and concrete and it is cold ten months out of the year.
Read More