Category: fiction
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Metamorfossi
“You Americans need to step out of yourselves, we like you people,” George White Eye[1] insisted, his own focus lit wide, wider than the small room in which I lay. I cannot respond with his fingers inside my mouth. “You understand what I say?” I nod impatiently, just wanting to get on with it. The…
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The Valley
The valley was ten miles and several worlds away. I hailed a taxi at the station and we drove out of town as the late autumn afternoon began its characteristic hush. The road soon began to drop towards a broad wooded valley with patches of mist here and there. I asked the driver to pull…
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Leofflæd
Though she had often been warned about the will-o’-the-wisps, as a child, her curiosity drove her to follow one deep into the woods. She had been listening to the crows (anxious, as they were, to leave for the winter) when it caught her eye and lead her out of town, into the woods. She chased…
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The Curbside Discount
THE ORIENTATION: Professor Robin Nagle is situated so she can face all of us with her back against one of the four glass walls that make up the room we’re sitting in, a transparent cube within the otherwise penal-grey concrete basement that serves as host for the orientation before the tour. She begins hesitantly; the…
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Dream Box
It had been awhile since an evening opened up for all six of them to get together. The Sterlings were homeschooling their two boys, both of the Smiths were coaching their daughter’s basketball team, and the Kensons, though childless, were busy with work. When people wish for time to slow down, it seems to speed…
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Chronic, Traumatic, Eden
At the base of the hills he met Emma, as they had done every day this summer, at 6:30. Their togetherness had become a kind of record; proof that one another had existed this and made the most of the long evenings. “Do you remember finding that tree that was struck by lightning?” Emma might…
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Hopeful Apocalypses
Though I don’t have the pedigree to write voluminously on hopeful apocalypses, a friend of mine earned his doctorate in ancient apocalyptic literature from the University of Edinburgh and, with luck, we’ll get him on here sometime in the future to write a series entitled either Age of Apocalypse or Apocalypse Now, we haven’t really…
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Retainer On A Bedside Table
When you meet him, try not to look too much into his eyes. And try not to look too much like you’re trying to avoid looking into his eyes. When you meet him try to remember what you’re saying, don’t let your train of thought leave without you because his eyes are glowing too blue.…
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Thunder-turtles
“Thunder-turtles!” That’s the watchword, and it means feet hidden in foliage, flag hauled out of sight, napkins full of white chocolate-chip cookies stuffed up our shirts. We can’t still the shaking of every leaf in the tree, though. I bite my lip in a mix of hope and fear and in the back of my…
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Green Witch
Plants were powerful vessels. Even the grass in the ground was green with unspoken vitality, woven into their fibers by the delicate hands of mother nature. Admiring the plants in the room, I murmured their incantations on the tip of my tongue, teasing the potency of the spells that rested in their roots. The air…
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The Invaluable Nature of an Arts Education
As children, we draw pictures to tell stories. The scribbles, lines, and outside-the-line coloring seem merely arbitrary; a dog next to a house with a tree, a stick figure creation, or the classic unproportional family portrait. We come home from school covered in marker ink and with heads full of stories. We sing songs to…
