Fiction

Arco, Idaho

“Please, Sylvia, give me a moment to think.” These are the last words you hear your father speak. You are eleven, and the two of you are traveling midsummer through eastern Idaho headed for Glacier National Park. It’s the year your mother passed, and so much has been hard and empty since the long suffering…

The Miracle Years of Little Fork

In the fourth week of drought, at the third and final performance of the Roundabout Traveling Circus, the elephant keeled over dead. Instead of stepping on the tasseled stool, she gave a thick, descending trumpet, lowered one knee, and fell sideways. The girl in the white spangled leotard screamed and backed away. The trainer dropped…

Dad’s Just a Number

Hello! I am 5 feet 11 inches and have a medium build. I have dark brown hair and blue eyes. My skin color is pale. My mother’s ethnic origin is Belgian, my father’s ethnic origin is Polish and French. My racial color code as established by the Chicago Bank of Life is white. I am…

Taxidermy

Afterward, Eva turns her face to the wall and falls asleep immediately, smacking her lips like a newborn. Her husband and I are left alone, wide awake and clueless about what to do with our naked bodies. He fondles his half-limp dick underneath the blanket. His arm is thrusting mechanically, without much enthusiasm or hope….

Extremities

The dissector instructed us to identify the tympanic membrane, a thin connective tissue that carried vibrations into the inner ear. Daniel and his partner Julie were on the cadaver’s left, and I was on the right. “Did you find it?” I asked them. I was lost, as usual, and disgusted. Each day after anatomy class,…

In the Flesh, We Shone

They met at a dinner party. She was young and blond. He, tall, dark, and dead. Seated beside him, she found it hard to stop watching his pale, veined fingers stroke the fabric of his placemat. She only knew her aunt here whereas he seemed a friend to most. Across the table, a mousy guy…