My neighbor, Higgins, came home from work yesterday, walked in the house and dropped dead. Slumped dead would be more accurate. As always, Blanche was watching Fox News Channel, working herself into a bit of a dither over the latest …
As she gazes at the photo, the memory of coconut oil almost smells real. Her parents wore their tans like medals as they posed in front of their second-hand camper. She was there too, just a little tyke at the …
Thea woke up to find a man sitting in the corner of her room. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and he was wearing a polo with jeans. His large body was curled into a ball, with his knees …
1985, Russia, Soviet Union
I gasped, wrapped my hands around my stomach, and curled into a ball, trying to catch my breath. It was as if someone had stabbed me in the back. The waves of pain rolled through my …
Kristin stopped typing to breathe. She did her best to work, but when she thought about Asha’s illness the shaking started—and the difficulty breathing. Her mind felt stretched and warped and letters on the screen blurred. She heard her heart …
One summer, Uncle Doug and Aunt Tammy took us bowling at Pinstripe Alley in Middletown, NY. My older brother, Rick, remembers it as the Fourth of July weekend, but he’s wrong. Middle school awaited us, only a week away.
To …
“Are you coming tonight?” Sheila says. She leans on the door frame, head tilted back and tousled brown hair falling around her face, her shape back-lit by the light from the hallway. She looks like she’s posing for a fucking …
I can barely stand these days, I’m so shaky and exhausted from lack of sleep. I hoped I would catch up during summer vacation, but it’s been getting worse and worse. When I complained to Henry last week that leaf …
June squeezed my hand.
“I can’t hear so good,” she told me.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I leaned closer to her. “Let’s go get some breakfast.”
I wheeled June into the dining hall at the nursing home where I worked. …
Sometimes Suzanne joked with her husband that she was the token older female at the office. Sure, WindShear had hired a few other women: Stephanie Cleary, the admin, plus Sunita Shah and Daksha Dutt in engineering. But they were in their twenties, …