Theo sat in the tiny dining room next to the kitchen, trying to concentrate on a book he wanted to read for a long time now. In lieu of a dining set, there was a burgundy recliner and a small round table that once sat in the breakfast nook. His twenty-six year old daughter, Magda, had dragged the large dining room table into the kitchen because of the great light from the bay windows. He heard her
Month: April 2017
Kathy Anderson ~ Airport Wine Bar
It was their own damn fault for daytime drinking. You don’t wave wads of cash around in front of a woman who can’t afford to buy the drug that keeps her alive and not expect her to grab it as fast as she can.
The first couple she stole from was so nice. Ali and Amina from Kazakhstan. Marnie would never forget them. They were inexperienced travelers, very confused about US dollars. Marnie relaxed
Christie Wilson ~ Solvay 1927
The dining room, electric with the shifting of wool and the static that hums over the tables in the form of speculation and vibrating conversation, leans towards the important ones as they enter and take their seats at the tables.
As usual, we’ve been instructed on invisibility, but it is difficult not to linger. I take inordinate amounts of time refilling the coffee cups, clearing plates, and
Andy Plattner ~ Library
Wayne knows that the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library downtown opens at 10 a.m. on Tuesday-Saturday and never one minute earlier, not even when it’s raining and there are a dozen plus-citizens waiting to get inside. The building is eight stories, cube-shaped, neutral-toned. He’s read up on the architecture: it’s known as Brutalist, taken from the French words beton brut, or “raw concrete.”
Graeme Carey ~ Expelled from Eaton Park
Another head poked through the small opening in the door. This time it belonged to Rory, the floppy-haired kid from next door. He was wearing a Santa hat and didn’t say anything to James, who lay on the bed with his hands behind his head and his eyes up at the ceiling. He just wanted to get a look.
Everyone wanted to get a look. All afternoon, heads had been popping in and out of the room
Abigail Greenbaum ~ Beauty Is Pain
The hospital where Petra was born, her mother would later tell her, ran out of drugs the week of her birthday, so her mother screamed for hours, and her father, at work filing papers, swore he could hear the shrieks echoing across the entire city. Petra didn’t know whether to believe her mother about the shortage of drugs, or if she made up the negligence, another piece of evidence in her mother’s
Mark Budman ~ Super Couple
Soupmann is Superman’s third cousin twice removed. Unlike his relative, Soupmann set his priorities logically and succinctly. He fights for truth and justice, and sometimes for truth and the American way, and sometimes for justice and the American way, but not for all three at once. Otherwise, he’d be stretching too thin. He goes into a phone booth and turns into chicken soup. He smothers
Kim Magowan ~ Wheels Inside Wheels
Her death is sudden, so there is no time to prepare—no protracted sickness. A stroke: Henry wakes to find her dead beside him, stiff and cool.
You have never met Elaine. You have only seen pictures: the one on his desk with the lacquered frame, and the wedding picture on the hall table that one time you went to their house, when Elaine was visiting their son in college. I imagine you encountering
James Hartman ~ Stage Three
Even prolific swingers like us had morals. Rules to our carefree promiscuity. Rules each of us took seriously. Beth and I had been happily married, you see, before we met this married couple off a dating site at Sloppy Joe’s. Rule One: we only got together with just as happily married couples. But when these two walked in, Beth poked my shoulder and rasped, “They’re not
Maximus Anthony Adarve ~ Déjà Vu
I trace the scars that tattoo the dark skin of your shoulders in the back seat of my Volvo s80 and tell you to stop popping benzos so often. I like the way you sigh and roll your head back when I go down and how you wear that wig sometimes. You’re prettier than my girlfriend when you wear that shit. Sometimes I feel like I should shave my legs more often. It’s getting warmer and I’ve been
Wyatt Bonikowski ~ Teenage Boy in Polaroids
The teenage boy drove a black Trans Am with an eagle on the hood. He was friends with my babysitter Rita and her friends, and she would invite them over to drink beers and blast David Bowie and T. Rex on my dad’s stereo system. One night the girls raided my parents’ bedroom and dressed me in a wig and a glamorous old gown and painted my face with lipstick and rouge. The teenage boy had long