Every morning is the same. I wake up, shower, get ready for school. I take Mother out of the chifforobe and place her on the dressing table, so she’ll catch a little afternoon sunshine. She tells me I shouldn’t bother, but I think she enjoys it, secretly; on those occasions where I forget, she’s sluggish […]

John convinced his grandson to take him on this trip even though Franklin had his doubts. John felt apologetic. He knew he was asking a lot. Franklin was a fine young man, and had always been a loyal and dutiful grandson, but clearly John’s progressive disease frightened him. John persuaded him this was his final […]

When it was my turn to have my lips sewn, I chose lace. I’d never seen anything so lovely: scalloped edges, intertwining threads forming webs and florets. The way it curled in my palms. How it tickled and scratched my skin, rough yet pliant. The cart in the bright sewing room was neatly packed with […]

A crown wasn’t a requirement for starving, but most of us adopted it as a rule. We imagined the crystals as diamonds, the metal as silver, the weight of the circlet resting atop our hairsprayed updos the triumph we’d been chasing all seventeen years of our lives. Sequins and glitter look better against exposed hip […]