New World Writing Quarterly

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/12/10/the-displaced-person/

Four Stories

 
HIS TERRIBLE FEELINGS

Whenever he felt dead to his paint­ing, Theodore went shop­ping. Not down the street, but out where the grass strips still bub­bled and oozed. Ten min­utes atop the brown­fields and Theodore would feel alive again, he’d need to rush home. His can­vass­es, once stalled, had nerve, torque, solutions. 

Juleen

 
Juleen wants to punch Max in the face. 

Confinement

 
She wakes to the sound of beat­ing wings and a bit­ter wind formed by dark­ness. She is late, still tied to a dream about miss­ing him at a bus sta­tion, then at a train sta­tion and then at an airport.

Solid-rock is how she wants him. This is not about sex. It’s not about beau­ty or the late-night con­ver­sa­tions they used to have long ago. No.  It’s about famil­iar­i­ty, about putting her cheek to his bel­ly and feel­ing the tight warm skin of his thin body. 

Cold Hands

from a nov­el in progress

Most who pass by this stretch of high­way don’t notice there’s a town here.  Their eyes glaze over the flat, yel­low land of Central Montana that goes on and on. The only land­mark tall enough to see from the road is the vacant grain ele­va­tor, where the local kids like to play. But just as its sil­ver tow­er comes into view, the a.m. radio los­es its sig­nal. They look down to fid­dle with the dial, and there goes the town of Petroleum. 

Giant

 
The babysit­ter sets a plate of pan­cakes in front of the boy. She’s eigh­teen and wear­ing a short night­ie. Fingers of sun stretch across her freck­led face.

Three Stories

 
Appearances and Disappearances

George General patient­ly explained it to his pret­ty blonde wife:  how the sun instead of set­ting this evening had turned right around and rose with the full moon.  He was quite sure it hadn’t hap­pened before.  Never? she want­ed to know but only in a desul­to­ry way. 

Altitude

 
Worst part of work is the meet­ings, ask any­body, and I always seem to find myself in one of them with my col­league with the mile-high view.  If he’s not try­ing to edu­cate us he’s try­ing to sell us some­thing, main­ly the wis­dom of his ele­vat­ed view­point.  I don’t know why he wastes his time on us when it’s obvi­ous he believes we’ll nev­er scale the men­tal heights nec­es­sary to under­stand him.  It must be cold and lone­ly up there on the moun­tain­top, see­ing the rest of the world below bet­ter than the peo­ple who live there.

Bad Sex, Part Two

 
ONE:

“I want you to try on engage­ment rings,” Eduard said. “Just for fun.”

We were in San Salvador. He’d found us a hotel with a beach we could walk on. We woke ear­ly and walked along the beach for more than an hour. We climbed a hill cov­ered with vines and on the oth­er side there was a sea cave. We took off our shoes and our clothes and put them on a high rock and swam naked. We were in the water for half an hour and Eduard said, “Look!” and caught his own wal­let float­ing in the water. He found my shoes in the surf. There was no beach left by our cave and we had to swim out beyond and around the rocks with our clothes in our hands to get back to land. I had want­ed to make love on the sand in that cave.

We’ve just added anoth­er half-dozen pieces to our Fall col­lec­tion. Please check them out if you haven’t been by in a while. New pieces by Claudia Smith, Clancy Martin, Kathy Fish, Peter Ramos, Glen Pourciau, David Moolten and oth­ers. Click here.

New work from Mason and Lopez, along with Steven Wingate and Joan Wilking, just added to the Fall 2015 issue edit­ed by Kim Chinquee. Hit this link or Fall 2015 in the main menu above for a look see. –more

We’re pleased to have our Associate Editor Kim Chinquee select­ing and edit­ing the Fall 2015 issue of New World Writing. Kim has already tak­en sev­er­al pieces and will be read­ing through the mid­dle of December at least, so keep the work com­ing. –more

I Wanted To Sit Closer

 
On a cold morn­ing in January, my father showed up on our front porch. He said he was in town for a hair­cut; there was a salon he and his sec­ond wife went to in Bucktown, a neigh­bor­hood that hadn’t flood­ed. My hus­band and son and I had just returned to New Orleans to live togeth­er again under one roof.

We are pleased to report that Kim Chinquee, author of Oh, Baby and Pretty, and par­tic­u­lar­ly well known for her exquis­ite flash fic­tions, will be edit­ing the Fall 2015 issue of NWW. We –more

Egret

Frank took up golf when he and his wife moved to Lost Lakes Preserve three months ago. He hadn’t bro­ken nine­ty, and today looked like the day. He’d cov­ered the front nine in 44, chipped in for birdie on 11, and holed a thir­ty-foot­er for anoth­er birdie on 14. Standing now on the 16^th tee, he knew he had only to bogey his way in for an 89—a small thing, maybe, but he under­stood that the small suc­cess­es were the only ones left to him. Last year he’d final­ly been pro­mot­ed to pres­i­dent of his ad firm after being bypassed again and again for younger can­di­dates with new ideas, or old­er can­di­dates with more expe­ri­ence, or stronger lead­ers, or bet­ter con­sen­sus builders—always some­one else. Now he’d final­ly reached the top of his small region­al agency, and there was nowhere else to go unless he was will­ing to sidle his way into one of the nation­als, which would also mean a tem­po­rary step back­ward for the promise of some­thing bet­ter. At 58, he’d keep the sure thing, espe­cial­ly when the sure thing had giv­en him and Jeanne the means to build their dream house on one of the last remain­ing golf course lots at Lost Lakes.

The Night Witches

Months before the fire—the big one that cuts up through the homes in our hills like a plane through a flock of doves—I see Rochelle in the street. It’s a Sunday. She has her hand in some guy’s pock­et. Her hair is paler than I remem­ber it, and it hangs down around her face like she still cuts it her­self. She is tanned, bro­ken-in, like she’s been liv­ing out­doors all these years.

So Long

Ana grinned as she walked toward him, weav­ing her way through the heavy traf­fic of Canal Street. Michael smiled and pre­tend­ed to look some­thing up on his phone. It was late May but Manhattan felt like a desert that day; blind­ing sun­light and a dry, brit­tle kind of heat.

Porcelain

She, who nev­er asks for any­thing, point­ed to the dis­play case and said, “I want this.”  It was a porce­lain Christmas fig­urine, noth­ing short of a glazed mon­u­ment.  As a cen­ter­piece, it would over­take most of a din­ner table.  Santa Claus was sculpt­ed into a Mexican cow­boy, with spurred boots, som­brero, and a black mus­tache.  Mexican Santa sat high on a blan­ket sad­dle and held the reins of a red-nosed bur­ro, lift­ed onto its hind legs, tri­umphant­ly car­ry­ing them to the North Pole.  Like all Santas, his cheeks were rud­dy and his smile jovial.  Cargo hung off the burro’s flank, bulging with dolls and oth­er children’s toys.   My father bought it for my moth­er imme­di­ate­ly, because she had asked.

Future Mistakes

Raisa Kolbe cast a wor­ried stare through the glass par­ti­tion at the only swad­dled new­born not cry­ing.  Baby Boy Arturo’s eyes focused on the ceil­ing as if he were send­ing up his prayers before the inevitable hap­pened.  Raisa tapped on the glass in an attempt to rouse him but only suc­ceed­ed in gar­ner­ing the atten­tion of the nurse.

Raisa point­ed to the baby and mouthed, “Is he okay?”