Mad Derek said he was going to do a lap. The others who worked the yard—Weaselboy, Slow Pete, Sid, The Other Paul—burst out laughing. “Gawn with you,” they said. “Been at the antifreeze again?” “Gonna do it,” he said. Back in the 90s, he said, back in the 90s, around the cruises down Lakeside way, […]

On Monday, there are leftovers from Sunday dinner. Baked chicken, red beans, macaroni pie, fresh vegetable salad, potato salad, and of course, Spanish rice. But he could get that at any of the other houses, so she saves that for herself and makes baked fish with cassava, yam, green bananas, and eddoes. Solid blue food […]

I lived with an emptiness that was filled by my cat. It’s easy to be a lonely person. We work too hard, we strive for a sliver of dignity, and to keep a roof over our heads. We isolate ourselves from everyone we know, and even the smallest of conversations can be too tiresome after […]

For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon. —W.B. Yeats, “The Young Man’s Song” The house is a small 1930s bungalow in a neighborhood in decline. The yard with its flower bed and a few tidy bushes is well-tended by the landscape company your […]

The cherries were so ripe they burst, trickling down her fingers in crimson streaks that looked like coagulated blood. It was the third harvest of the season, and they had done everything they could possibly think of with the new batch of fruits: wild strawberry crepes, cranberry jam, blueberry pies, cherry wine. The other maids […]

They say the camera never lies, but Tate knows that isn’t true. These days, a tog like him has as many tricks up his sleeve as your average Instagrammer, from polarizing filters to adjusting white balance to colour saturation. It’s no longer simply a question of how much light you let in through an aperture, […]

With the covered basket from the Town Leader hanging from her wrist, Mina pulled on her boots and headed out the door of her old house to the Temple. Mother had painted an eye on the back of her neck and warned, “Be careful, the Mouths are crawling all over the place these days.” “I […]

When I was eight years old and my brother Jamie was nine, our father took us with him on one of his business trips. My father was a salesman, often on the road, and my mother was away that time, visiting a dying aunt in another state. So my father had to take us with […]

On Kimberley Road the boys of the neighbourhood used to play football in the street. Located in a mostly sedate warren of redbrick terraces built on the Sussex downs not far from the parish boundary of Brighton and Preston, Kimberley was just about quiet enough and along its lower stretch just about flat enough for […]

  Wind come down the mountain/you won’t see me ’gain Stars come down the mountain/you won’t see me ’gain —Traditional folk song Bear Creek/Chillcoate Mountain Region ca. 1932, unattributed It didn’t matter how many times Carter watched the footage—it didn’t change; it didn’t yield any further clues. None of which mattered. He couldn’t stop. In […]