He’s gone as if he was a magician presenting his last trick, disappearing in a cloud of smoke. He’s gone. Gone in the snap of a finger, leaving nothing behind, no marks, no evidence. He’s gone and what is left is the book. At first, Shawn’s mother keeps the book. She keeps other things, too: […]
It was the smell that woke her, an unfamiliar floral scent that made Eddie grab the first thing which came to hand—a sourly rank pelt—and bury her face in it, feeling it grow damp with drool and the flow of her tears. The light from the clocktower outside washed in over the mattress where she […]
Nydia stood in line at the crepe stand, just outside her office. The sun turned her skin into sweaty syrup, as thick as the caramel sauce that was being poured on the Apple Cinnamon special. Of course, the heat wasn’t the only thing weighing her down. She had been watching his shows since she was […]
In elementary school, the other kids called Liv’s home that haunted house out on Barnhill Road. Liv herself has never seen a ghost there, but not for want of trying. They called her father lots of things: Freddy Krueger, Charles Manson, David S. Pumpkins. Now that she’s in high school, the other kids call her […]
It’s autumn again, or at least the aspens are dropping their leaves as if it is. You will soon be saying that we must get warm for winter. You will ask me, again, the question that I am still too afraid to answer. Beyond the copse of aspens, I still think of myself as the […]
The highway to the campground cuts through the granite Laurentian Plateau like a desiccated wound. It’s been twenty five years since I’ve retraced this road and, though the comfort stops along the route have been expanded and streamlined, the forest and rock remain the same: Ancient, silent and unflinching. I was fourteen when we retreated […]
They will not say many things about Destiny, but they will say she sleeps in her dead father’s house because her mother asks her to. They will say she’s a good girl for observing customs, for taking the pain away from her mother, for going there. The women of Osamudia family always sleep in their […]
She’s heating water for the tea when everything starts again. The police officers stand by her house’s threshold; two of them, both looking serious and, at the same time, apologetic. They ask her if she’s seen the boy and offer a picture: the officer closer to the door, wearing a dark rain coat sprinkled with […]
The tippet you left dangling the clothes line disturbed more than the abandoned earthenware pots, which crumbled over time at the corner where you made them. The piece of fabric―grey, alive―gleamed in the morning light, swinging back and forth as if a finger agitated it. It was the second week since you died. The phone […]
Kelly and I met at Ithaca College. Then we both dropped out and rolled down the hill, living in a limbo where we weren’t quite townies but our friends who had stayed students were a bit suspicious of our strange schedules and sudden access to cash. This was back in the late 90s when you […]
