Stories tagged fiction

Souvenir

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Hours later, when I was on the phone trying to explain in broken Greek that I didn't have the money to pay damages, I started to retrace my steps from that souvenir shop I reduced to dust.

Camioneta

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Elvis meant nothing to me.

At Least There Will Be Plenty Implied

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Accidental suicide, though. Why, that could happen to anyone.

Two Snapshots of A Drowning Girl

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One fine afternoon a few months after her husband's death, Susan awoke in the porcelain tub of her gigantic, empty house with: two champagne bottles, one only half-empty; a Xanax bottle, completely empty; and a loaded gun, which was most startling

Love at First Sight

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Life ascends gradually—just like they always said. I stop counting on immediate transformations—the overnight best-seller, instant enlightenment—and instead focus on what I can do: Writing a little each day and making it to Mass on the weekend. I even giv

Decoy

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No one saw him arrive at the half-moon garden just south of Delancey, no one saw him hang his cage from one of the drainage pipes, but by the time the rest of us got there, the bamboo frame was already covered with silky, golden cloth that reflected the e

After Grief

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Within a day, she had a scummy apartment which belonged to the government. It had cockroaches, which she was not used to. They churned her stomach, repulsive little things. Not even creatures. Two brains, she'd read: one in the head, one in the ass.

Iowa

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The toupee shouts something about American excellence as it waves its .38 Special around like a flag.

A Babe in the Mirror and Another in the Woods

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“Would you look at that one!” my father said. “Who did she know?” my mother asked. “Who did she blow?” my father said loudly, and burst out laughing. I laughed too, although I didn't know why. My mother shot him one

Making Conversation in a Bar Making Soap Into a Bar

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For every four fingers of good whiskey you down a glass of water.

Rags To Riches To Rags, 4, 5, 6

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Then Vladimir asked Ellen if she wanted to try out the dungeon. And she looked at me, and smiled. “Well, yes.” “What?” I said. “No, Ellen, no! Do not let him lock you in here, whatever you do.” “Do not worry. Do not worry. I am Janovsky, no? I

Second-Shift Parenting

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Your mom’s favorite joke right now is how enamored I am with the chair the nurse brought me, the one that converted into a bed. Apparently, it’s all I can talk about when people ask about your birth. But really what can I say? If I say the birth was easy,

Secrets and Piles of Money

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The dog awakens at the sound of a petal falling, sure that barbarians are at the gate. She opens wide her yellow teeth.

My Emerald Skull

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Three men were waiting for a bus. The first man said -- his face come to life like a suddenly alive inanimation -- “If you worry that I am ill, good news for you. A wizard gave me a great gift. His name is Handsome, Handsome the Wizard, and he gave me

Sunny Side

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I was so used to the silence of late summer afternoons, when I could roll my hoop through the empty, sunlit piazzas without meeting another shadow, that at first I mistook the footsteps for the beat of a metronome spilling through an open window.