I’m sitting at the table where the employees take breaks and smoke cigarettes. After closing, it’s where we drink and unwind. I just got off from my fourth twelve hour shift in a row and I’m tired. I’m debating whether I should drink again tonight […]
Mountain or martian blueberries are two other names for moqui marbles. I don’t know where the name moqui comes from, just that I always want to spell it like the Japanese ice cream, mochi. They’re pretty boring rocks, going by looks alone. Grayish blue, round, […]
Raíz lay down, in a black burqa, on the white sheet. From above, she must have looked like an abstract painting, a single black brushstroke on a white canvas, or like calligraphy. The sun radiated out over her in a massive golden spiral and the […]
Using borrowed garden shears, I cut the stems of violets then use my water bottle as a vase to bring them home. These purple and white petals will form a simple bouquet to set on the table between our dinner plates. It’s midweek, so nothing […]
My daughter doesn’t know what I mean when I say, “Family party.” She knows the two words, but together they don’t make much sense. She’s more familiar with family disaster and family emergency and family troubles, words often headlining her absence notes. Close your eyes […]
Your wife isn’t allergic to cats, so she’s at the party, playing board games that pair well with red wine, getting fur on the black leggings she wears under her floral skirt, and you’re at home watching a two hour special about pharaohs on the […]
Basic Dignity You press your hand against the door as if you’re checking for fire and say, “Cyndi, it’s going to be all right.” You can hear her sobbing, but she manages to say, “I can’t marry a man who doesn’t understand that basic […]
Cousin Pauly is teaching my mother how to make pizza like he makes at Yetty’s, his Italian restaurant in Herkimer, New York. Wearing matched blue gingham aprons, faces whitened with flour, they tease each other and work the dough. Haven’t seen my mother laugh like […]
Karl and I worked at the Bistro du Pape on Esplanade. He worked the service bar and I was a waiter. It was a posh joint, where we spent every Thursday through Saturday serving expensive meals to Montreal’s French-speaking elite, including television news people. Karl […]
Your guidelines clearly state that any story in translation must be submitted with the original text. This problem has me sacked out on my couch staring at the ceiling. I have no original text. Please consider making an exception for this submission. The narrative concerns […]
My daughter is passed out in her grandmother’s bed – the steady rise and fall of her ribs in her tiny Ariel swimsuit. She sleeps through the sound wafting in through the screen door to the balcony. Rasp of a breeze through the palm fronds, […]
Uncle Charlie sits alone on the porch. The rest of us are inside getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. I sit by the fire and watch him through the big window in the front room. It’s a cold, windy Thanksgiving in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. […]
