Fiction

The Fisherman’s Son: Teresa Pantaluna Once there was a poor but honest man, what we call un’omu di pazienza, a man of patience, who worked the whole day-day after day-in the unrelenting heat of the scorching sun, casting his nets out into the blue sea, then rowing his little boat wide and far so as…

T he squad was made up of three girls from a school. The girls’ names was Debbie, Donna, and Shenay. They was stalwart, steady, and statuesque, always going round not hurting old people or weak boys but helping them. They strolled down Ronald Drive and Cahill Street to Nathalie Avenue to way over to Jefferson…

There were two women I thought might be able to help me, or rather help Lance, and that night, sitting on the bus on the way home from the hospital, I vowed to find one or both of them the next day, even if I had to cancel a couple of my afternoon classes to…

Later the squat white cylinders with their delicate indentations would be revealed as a species of lantern. But when Krzysztof Wojciechowicz first glimpsed them, dotted among the azaleas and rhododendrons and magnolias surrounding Constance Humboldt’s kidney-shaped swimming pool, he saw them as dolls. The indentations cut the frosted tubes like waists, a third of the…

The Buffalo Vision Late on the third night of the Sun Dance, most of the hundred Crow people within the Big Lodge had fallen asleep. The fire was low, the singers’ voices hoarse over the drumbeat. Only John Sees the Hill still danced in place, his back to the circular wall of upright aspen boughs….

The man at her door was bald and wore a blue windbreaker. She had asked him twice what he wanted, but he had only said, “Are you Emily Fletcher?” as if he knew she was, but needed confirmation. It struck her from the man’s salutary tone that she might have won something-an envelope was about…

Kirby Dexter is forty-six years old, and for as long as he has practiced law, more than twenty years, he has thought of himself as someone who solves problems. He is a CPA as well as a tax attorney, and he is the person to call if you want something airtight. He is accustomed to…

Today is my fortieth birthday. I don’t feel old at all. I’ve been sitting here for a while, on this courtyard bench, and if she’s coming, then she’s late. Married couples walk around, trying to interest each other, pointing to the faded pink walls and to the iron balustrades. The men tell the women facts…

The Ivy League is a short haircut. The sides and back are buzzed, and the top is just long enough to comb. It makes Kenny look like the boy in the school portraits his mother props on the mantle. Also like some California surfer our friend Missy fell in love with. Lately, Kenny’s been going…