When I go in, the sink is bursting with unwashed dishes coated with moldy leftover scraps, half-filled glasses, cups that balance precariously on the counter rim, ripped open TV dinner boxes thrown on top; there isn't room for me to set aside the cleaned dishes....
Marvin’s tumor is the size of an unshelled walnut. His doctor, who wears bile-colored Crocs, has told Marvin and Marvin’s wife, Cathy, that he plans on removing the tumor with a knife that’s not really a knife but a beam of light. When the surgery was first explained,...
The shades are pulled down by Mick before the summer sunsets. Mick is a regular: he spends every day, open to close, in the bar drinking Bacardi and Cokes and shots of Fireball. He buys drinks for everyone and tells them he loves them. He loves me the most; he’s...
Kerry found a hundred-dollar bill at the gas station near pump three. It was covered in oil. She carried the money inside to show the attendant, Jeremiah. “A hundred bucks! What are the chances?” Kerry said. “Lucky,” he said. She bought two cans of Dr. Pepper, and...
It wasn't a date exactly. He said, "Do you want to see a dead body?" I said yes. I would have done anything to spend time with him. I was a secretary for the medical school, and he was a student. He liked to drop by and talk to me between his neurology lecture...
We want your very best work! Writers at every stage of their career are encouraged to submit, but we want writing that goes hard. We want the stuff that punches us right in the ear, perforating the drum in such a way it prevents us from swimming that whole...
The wolves are out again. I can hear them, their hollow wails in the pines, slicing through a storm of snow. It’s my turn to get the wood in. It was my turn last night and the night before and the night before that, too, but Father says I’m mistaken. He’s so careful...
It is not an air raid. Above the city’s steepled church-tops the two planes break from the clouds. Sunlit rain begins to trickle down, and then the smell from wet city streets. The clock tower strikes a warning. “Judita, you had best head home before they begin,” says...
I didn’t have any theater experience, but when I saw the ad for background actors for a local play, I thought it sounded fun: wear a costume, stand in the back, get paid $60 a show. I heard they were taking whoever fit the costumes. The play, it turned out, was...
One Sunday morning, I wake up to discover that both of my daughters have turned into birds. The younger—a tow-headed chatterbox, always sidling up to me when I baked, eager to add a spice of her choosing to the recipe—is a great blue heron stalking around the kitchen...
It was the year the flood washed a parade of homes downriver. They called it a rain bomb. Kate’s home was fourth. She followed three other women, unable or unwilling to leave their homes that once lined the largest river on their tropical island. Kate tried her phone,...
Yes, I saw something. I was making my regular Friday night sauce-and-cheese sandwich. It’s like pizza on an Italian bread. When I went to junior high, Fred’s, the pizza place, sold sauce-and-cheese sandwiches at lunch hour for a dollar; came with a Coke, but now I...