1772 4 5
|
The summer when I was six and my sister Audrey was eight, she'd walk around our house pretending to be in a trance, fingers strategically hovering over my mother's vases and lamps, leaving smudges behind on my father's heavy oak desk and rocking chair. She'd lumber past my…
|
177241
|
Each drip off the corrugated plastic sheeting made a tinny sound that he could hear from deep within the damp sleeping bag and layers of blankets where he was trying to sleep.
|
177221
|
Justin comes out of the bathroom, finally erect, his hands glistening with K-Y jelly as he chucks the girlie mag into a corner. “I'm ready.” Through the afternoon's soft-filtered light, Kelly watches him climb on top of her and thinks of…
|
177274
|
You're a good dog, she whispered to him, a good brave dog. Her face was tight with soap.
|
177232
|
fate is an illusion we use to ease the terror of our mortality
|
177293
|
During what's called "Children's time," one day at church Sarah slides her left foot halfway out of her tiny ballet slipper to show Davie her toenails are painted the same soft pink as the inside of her shoe. "Look," she says. "My…
|
177221
|
Judith was a bed wetter. Judith was a first-year college student and she was embarrassed that she wet the bed.
|
1772149
|
I crave the confines of the convent
|
177294
|
William Shakespeare (a surname that meant "wanker" back in the day, by the way)
|
177287
|
|
177276
|
Uh oh, the dry cleaning ticket
|
177175
|
Biscuits and gravy. I'm off today, I'm lazy.
|
177121
|
An undercover agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman in a sting operation that led to the arrest of two rabbis for kidnapping men who refused to grant divorces to their wives.
|
17711212
|
Your mother is a great and dying bird. Once, she tended her grand feathered nest. Once, she preened.
|
177121
|
For the briefest moment, she was part of the sky. She hung there. Frozen. Suspended. Arms outstretched. She thought maybe she could take off flying, if she strained against gravity hard enough. She would soar into the pale blue until she reached the clouds. They …
|
177165
|
the names / she carried (within)
|
177141
|
Sunday afternoon was the best. The kids drew straws for a chance to sit on the stool in the Kitchen with the broken armrest. I think mom thought it was an antique but it was just a piece of shit her dad picked up second hand.
|
177162
|
Mark dressed the velvet red Stetson,
too big for his head,
like a dandy.
A six year old savior
with fringe on his pockets
flapping as he, the ‘Judas horse’
led me ’round back
|
177112
|
From a window, the young Pole Krzysztof Penderecki saw resistance fighters hanged by Nazis...
|
177087
|
Co-workers have started calling him Jesus, Manson, Foghat, Doobie Brother, hippie, hipster, Grizzly Adams, Dude Lebowski... there’s really no end to it.
|
177032
|
One night he woke up with Underdog laying next to him, breathing softly. He marveled at how fiction could make reality so much better.
|
17701913
|
|
177063
|
Ellen decided to soft-pedal the one month to live thing. Really, there was barely time for the patient to read Ellen's brochure.
|
17701614
|
Dinner conversation reminds me of the chatter of birds. Happy talk. Nothing real.
|
177000
|
The place turns out to have a really nice ambiance, and while the pasta is only passable—though I ordered, I believe, the cheapest plate on the menu, so maybe I got what I deserved—the background dinner music playing is "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by Wilco.
|
177000
|
There won't be dancing, anymore. That isn't true, that can't be true; but there is no floor to dance on, you know?
|
1770167
|
|
17701811
|
"We gotta get out of here", you said
|
177031
|
“We should start a virgins' support group,” said Cindi one autumn afternoon. We were sitting in the bay window of the Campus Coffee Cavern ...
|
17701616
|
She’s witnessed her mother’s terror on the day of the hurricane, and she demanded for the first time in her life that her mother do something her mother did not want to do.
|
