Leaves just starting to turn in early autumn, a splash of red in the green. Six-mile run today, three miles up a mountain, three back down. Who runs up a mountain? I had no idea the road would take me … Continued
Translated from Arabic by Thoraya El-Rayyes Like stars on a dark black night, flocks of clouds passing before them—that was how bodies writhed in the celestial nightclub, slicing the lights as they undulated. The Almighty Boss sent forth his … Continued
In the hipbone slopes of the Owyhee Mountains, my sister lives in an abandoned shepherd’s homestead. She says the white alkaline hills are closing in on her, that she can taste the iron in the sand and it tastes like … Continued
They started taking things from her. First, the marriage, then the job. She should have been chosen as deputy county attorney. She knew it was because of the divorce, which dirtied her in the courthouse. She was a domestic-abuse victim … Continued
A Goodwill painting, a stony abstract, not bad. Black Sharpie slashes its canvas back—To Michelle, from Rodney. It juts from the cart’s jumbled flannels and porcelains. To Michelle, from Rodney. You invent them. Lovers, Michelle a cold bitch. Not lovers, … Continued
The woman is big but she is not beautiful. I am somebody who likes beautiful women, regardless of size, in fact for a long time I thought the bigger the better, but not like this. She is big like the … Continued
hold all weddings on Sundays. It begins with champagne brunches—the upper-class way to drink before noon. They dip their narrow-tipped muzzles near the fizz, bubbles tickling their whiskers. Just pour orange juice to add twice as much class. They anticipate … Continued
It’s dark as I bite my nails past the skin in the drive-thru lane at McDonald’s. I can’t remember how I got here. I barely remember leaving the house. Reluctantly, swiftly, without changing out of the new pajamas that the … Continued
When Celeste came out and stood at the top of the apartment steps, the wind made her step back and catch herself. She tightened her arms close to her body and made a fist with her collar. That’s when Montarbo … Continued
The bad egg smell of it always brought a lot back. Lindsey was young when she started using Clarins self-tanning products, she couldn’t remember how young—her parents were still married; it was the summer of the boat. The boat in … Continued
The house across the street was dark. It looked as if it had burned down and been re-built from ash and tar and human bones. Bits of wood crumbled off the roof like Play-Doh, and windows were cracked. The grass … Continued
Situation Analysis The recent congressional hearings on credit card debt in America surely were a wake-up call for us here at Bank of the United States (heretofore referred to as “Large Bank”). We heard from struggling grandmothers who can’t afford … Continued
1. A cheap leather coat K’s father lent me when we were visiting and the weather turned cold. It had belonged to his brother, a cop, but had never been worn because the brother, as K’s father explained, died within … Continued
People from the halfway house come into the store. One guy in particular. I think his name is Richard. He never buys books. “I came in with this,” he says, raises a paperback like Moses with the commandments. Richard thinks … Continued
Hillary’s hair caught on fire during the Christmas Eve service that year, and we were thankful that, for once, something new happened. In the congregation, Hillary’s father fainted, her mother shouted hysterically and somewhere way in the back, a chair … Continued
75. “We walk through the rusted bracken to the lido, to the place where the Park Woods give way to a cultivated beach. The darkness beneath the trees is a treatment, something a person might seek out to modify other … Continued
Lola Spencer had the sort of breasts that define a woman; they were big and she was small; they were gorgeous perfect things, pink-nippled, shaped like cantaloupes, firm and white. The rest of her seemed to exist to accentuate her … Continued
Excerpt: Judy Meyerson, a family counselor, had run her practice for over twenty-five years out of a converted townhouse on West Seventy-third Street. The place attracted her from the first, perhaps oddly because of the elevator cage that obviously had … Continued
I will behave like a dog. I will do it on the active volcano just like you want. I will wear what you put out on the bed. I will not be a loud drunk any more not spit no … Continued
Like lavender she is suited to extreme conditions, expert drainage and the appreciation of a romantic’s nose. She considers a rose to be a tentative gesture: petticoats of veiled ham to crispy blisters in approximately seven days. Sorry I can’t be … Continued