A Change in Message
My father did not show up the next day. I don’t know why I expected his ghost to be more reliable than his person. I waited by the statue for an hour and a...
A Warning
My husband told one of his jokes, one of his extremely committed puns, a dad joke for a man who would likely never be a dad, if we were to face how things...
You Were Just Here
And Somehow We Missed You
Maybe You Were Completely Wrong
And You’re Just Now Finding Out
Ambition
I was going to write something cunning about ambition but I stayed up late reading the internet. I had an idea for an invention, a new source of energy that...
Fetch the Smelling Salts
I Think I Need to Lie Down
Memorial
I want to build a memorial to you who died in the plague, but I cannot keep a thought in my head and I know nothing about construction. I decided to make a...
Facebook Migratory Patterns
A Horoscope Timeline
Penal Taxonomy
If we didn’t have the photographs people would never believe it. When I was young you could easily tell an orange tree from a grain or a Venus flytrap by...
Rat Tail
They were thoroughly wrung out but the bleeding was slowing, so they decided to meet up with Cathy Gallagher for lunch. Cathy used to run the laundry room...
The Permanent Position
Makin’ it rain like Jimmy and Jackson Workin’ that hustle put in my whole back, son Growin’ up fencin’ up that currency But it don’t even matter, they won’t...
The Genteel Barrenness
Their mother asked sheepishly if they wanted to be involved in Carrie’s shower present or if perhaps they were not into that sort of thing, since, it was...
Txori Txori Txantxangorri
When You Can’t and You Won’t
The Return
They were staring out the airplane window at dark cloudbanks. It was overcast where they were going. They wondered if they couldn’t have a baby because of...
The Bounds of Hearing
I was trying to write something for that Grist contest about imagining climate futures but it seemed altogether too positive and sooo this is what happened...
Delia
They explained their decision to the doctor who came in for a checkup in the afternoon. She made a serious furrow between her eyebrows and paused...
In the Trunk
“I don’t understand.” “I know. I’ll explain it later.” He pushed his chin out a bit like a bulldog. “I don’t get it. Why did we do all of this if you didn’t...
The Normal School
Margaret bent to fork a piece of wood into the open door of the stove with a gloved hand, grunting with the bend in her knees. She pushed it toward the back...
I Resign
They needed a break from the room, some time away from being seen by their partner, the doctor, the impulse to say something, to attend to them. They got a...
Rick and Dee
The woman knelt on a mat and carefully wiped the linoleum with a sponge. She scooted in parallel with the counter, along the line marked in the linoleum...