Fiction

When the camp director introduces God, he reminds us the man is just an actor. “His real name is Frank Collins,” the director says. “He lives in Knoxville and has a wife and three grown-up children.” He looks down at the little kids on the benches up front. “I want to make sure you know…

The first time it happened he assumed something had crawled into her fur—a hornet, maybe, or a spider (it was a chill day in October, so it might have been seeking warmth)—or that the dog had somehow lodged a shard of glass in her hair while rolling in the dirt. He’d been sitting in the…

Fourteen days patrol, the Colonel had ordered, but the men had already sold most of their ammunition on the Mandalay black market and had no intention of fighting even if they hadn’t, so they headed into the hills instead. Think of it as a camping trip, Mya Aung suggested to the others. * They crossed…

I was on the bus, on my way to see Dad, trying to distract myself by looking at all the cruddy people and their misery, but it was a total no go, I couldn’t concentrate; and then I was standing there in front of him saying (just like I’d rehearsed), I’m really sorry to interrupt…

Anthony Baron steps outside and takes a deep breath. The air is fresh with the scent of loamy soil and budding trees. The snow, except for a few icy patches, has melted. At last it is spring. It was a long, hard winter. For months it seemed as if all he did was dig out…

After Samuel died and I had to move up north to live with Faith and her husband Dan, I got rid of almost everything I owned. Not that I wanted to, but there was no space in their drafty house near the river for their things and my things too. I really only had a…

I always sat in the back of Mr. Kim’s algebra class. He was very enthusiastic about algebra. I drew a picture of me sticking my dick into Rex’s blond dreamgirl. Rex was on the other side of the room. I folded the paper and wrote Rex on the top, and told this ugly girl, Andrea…

The wolves came down from the hills and carried away the children of Chinook. The village lay wedged into a horseshoe beneath those white hills, twelve winding miles from Norton Sound. First one child was taken at the start of winter as he tugged his sled at the edge of a slope; another was snatched…

The tribute was held downtown, far away from the theater district. Christine crossed the street gingerly, on four-inch heels thin as pencils—Ivan had always loved women in high heels—and checked the address against the invitation in her purse. The building was new and modern, the front window lettered with Cyrillic characters and a boldface translation:…