Fiction

Crossing the Boundary

Translated from the Hungarian by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess1 What he noticed at first were white areas here and there on the wall between pictures. There were no replacements, nor did they rearrange the paintings, as if the bare spaces didn’t bother them. Even though the boy remembered that they used to move them…

Malpensa

Freya feels glamorous, commanding, when she exits a plane. In Brussels, in Burbank, arrival feels strong. She likes to be on her feet again, reclaiming the atmosphere, the world at eye level. The person you envision waiting is the one who matters most. The people she sees, even now, are her parents. Not the boyfriends…

Verona Rupes

You be the flowering lily, I’ll be the broken- down car on the lawn. Isn’t this May afternoon, this glass of iced tea, the breeze worth lying for? Let us drive through the heart of spring and never leave the yard. We’ll wrap our lips around the nozzle of the garden hose and drink to…

Havener

When the wildness comes over her again, the villagers give her a wide berth and well they should. The rage runs so hot through her blood that she won’t even throw herself into the sea—the force of her fury would only bob her back to the surface. When she meets Bride in the lane, she…

Mercy

What they did to Eddie the night he overdosed was put tubes up his nose and needles in both arms and then roll him into a room in the hospital where machines made dull roaring noises, and he had to hear the hissing inhalations from other bodies in other beds. It was not even quiet….

In the Next World, Maybe

She got off the train at Hudson and her father was there, tall and resigned, his long hands unraveling the brim of his sun hat as he held it in front of him. She had wondered if she would recognize him right away, but of course she did. The lines in his face had become…

The Rays Knuckleball Program

There was an arms race in the desert. It was 2014, and teams were manufacturing weapons. They were stockpiling them and refurbishing old ones—building their systems as they retooled the war rooms with Ivy League hires and interns—spurred, it seemed, by an urgency that could only appear in the sudden loss of a shared understanding….

Night Riding on the N29

When Tayo Musa was awaiting execution, his primary emotion was surprise. He had not foreseen his life turning out this way—which is to say, ending this way. He was not a political person. He had joined the marches because his friends said they were about freedom. Mr. Musa liked the idea of freedom, and his…

The Collector

What has stayed happened long ago, but Milty can’t remember reaching for his quad cane this morning. On the kitchen table where he sits are the notes he’s written to himself. His handwriting looks like it was done by some old drunk, and they’re yellow sticky notes that Donna bought for him, which he only…