Fiction

Leo, I don't think what you did was right. Five years ago you jumped on top of me and made me squirm until I thought my own bones being crushed into my lungs and liver might kill me. But I didn't die; I got used to you instead. Then one day you climbed off. Just…

Coach discovered Danny's arm when Danny's parents were splitting up at the beginning of the season. For a while it didn't seem that Danny would be playing at all, but Coach called him at home where he was staying with his father and told him he needed his "natural curve and pretty good heat," said…

Long brown fingers on the yellow keys. Fingertips pressed to silent chords, audible only to him. Ivory cool against dry skin. Again, tries; smiles. The click of hammers falling soundlessly. The old man looked up from the piano and grinned. "’I am that I am,’ the Lord God said." Woke up this mornin', blues walking…

How was it that Myott came to understand the nature of his hands? It happened like this. Even as a child he was, by temperament, a shy, gentle boy, quiet and self-contained, one not given to coveting the marginal compensations offered by an increasingly noisy and unprincipled world. His mother, who managed a religious bookstore…

Not Jane Eyre again. Other people are moving on in life or going around in circles or failing utterly, but I'm still doing business at the same old stand. Every year a new load of students is dumped like laundry in front of me, needing to know Jane Eyre. Sometimes I take comfort in the…

In Manik Sen's dream, the monsoons had begun. Thick drops of water fell tumultuously through the dark and the wind swung around in circles, from land to river to land. At first, in his dream, Manik was a child out in the rain, trying to gather the falling drops in his small palms. He let…

Inside the main entrance to Greenwood, "A Home for Retired Professionals," young Dr. Rogers came face to face with two tiny women in long, blue bathrobes with pointy hoods. They were peering suspiciously at him from behind the desk. "Who's that, Livvie?" the shorter one said. "Never saw him before in my life. Who are…

My appointment with the psychologist (Roberta) is at 5:00 p.m. It takes only ten minutes or so to walk there, but I decide to leave the house at 4:17 and take a circuitous route. Vigorous exercise helps mental health, too, says Roberta. Tacoma in November: dark, cold, wet. You notice the trees-laurels and firs, especially….

When Gilda tries to imagine what Phoebe Morrow looks like, she pictures Amelia Earhart in her rumpled jumpsuit, those fetching goggles and helmet rising straight from the cockpit, long scarf floating straight back, until Gilda realizes that what she's seeing isn't Phoebe or Amelia Earhart at all, but, rather, Snoopy as the Red Baron. Lately…