2588 5 4
|
O’Malley imagined the blissful, narcotic innocence of Toby’s world where soft-shell crabs crawled into people’s mouths and hummed a happy tune as they were chewed and swallowed.
|
2586126
|
It’s about 4:30 when the phone rings. I look at the display and see it’s home.
“Hey,” I say picking up.
“I hate you,” says Jules.
“I hate, you, too,” I say. My co-workers don’t even blink. They’ve heard this before.
|
258522
|
It's the way an earnest five-year-old boy pronounces every single letter as he whispers. Something about octopuses, something else about peas.
|
25853114
|
|
258432
|
The pieces of bread dipped us humans in cheese,
the cheese made by cows from our milk.
|
258332
|
It was one of those dinner parties where everyone had had a little too much to drink, and the conversation around the table had grown more . . . shall we say, spirited.
|
258321
|
Simon Ridley only had one special power. Whenever he walked into a room, an awkward silence would descend.
|
258363
|
We buried her upright, in the stance of warriors.
|
2583176
|
The Boys The Boys, they call my brothers in the neighborhood, or Those Boys. The Taylor Boys. Sometimes, Mom calls them Thing One and Thing Two, like in The Cat in the Hat. Those bad boys. Nobody has brothers like my brothers, kicked off the school bus, barred…
|
258187
|
A brief commentary on the uselessness of endings.
|
258111
|
The first morning we met—I remember the rain, soft the way I like it—was a series she later attributed as a fourteen-frame sunrise.
|
258171
|
If you run into my Aunt Lucille, put your head down and keep walking. She knows when a person is going to die. She knows when a fatal disease is heading your way and she doesn't keep it to herself. She told my best friend, Mary Lou Pierce, don't bother
|
25792310
|
'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.
|
257900
|
Like gymnastics, shoplifting is a discipline of youth.
|
25783621
|
The young boy picks up a coin that has rolled to his feet. It is warm, too warm considering the cold air streaming around him.
|
25771712
|
|
25773720
|
Make cartography with your mouth...
|
257700
|
“Ah, there’s the Tasmanian tiger,” the visitor says in an American accent, maybe midwestern. “It’s called a ‘thyracine,’ right?”
“Thylacine, yes.”
“Un huh. Thylacine. Extinct now, isn’t it?”
“Oh! Let’s hope not
|
257654
|
my exposed
flu-ridden head
|
257560
|
|
25741311
|
Her mother dressed her like a little girl would dress a doll.
|
25742321
|
The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.
|
257431
|
There are gestures, unmarred by the words put to them after all has failed. When Y. stopped you from talking to apply lip balm to your dry lips. Or she sidled up to you to read what you had written for her. When you lay on the grass together she put her head on…
|
25731212
|
Columbus Avenue, I’m the tense union of poor city rich city/
gentrification.
|
257300
|
The water burst into droplets of rain and fell on top of her. Chisame laughed out loud, a joy that overwhelmed her as she repeated this feat over and over.
|
257320
|
A cruel panther gets its prey.
|
2572187
|
This is the only time she feels she can be herself.
|
25713725
|
Come home, my love, and live.
|
25713918
|
Lined up like ghosts on the front lawn, the second-hand porcelain fixtures had embarrassed her.
|
2571209
|
Eighteen-layered canvases were prized by both of them, regardless of whose work appeared on top.
|
