Fiction

Companion Animal

When his wife told him to get out of the house that had been hers, anyway, long before they were married, Valdek Moore looked in the paper and found a semi-furnished one-bedroom at Linden Pines. The development’s name suggested an estate of elegant foliage, right for a term of penance, when it was really a…

Elephant Feelings

1. Topsy, needy This is about an elephant, electrocuted one hundred years ago. Her name was Topsy, and she was famous at a time when people were still amazed by an elephant. Plus she did tricks. She could stand on her back legs, raising her front legs, wearing a gauze tutu. She was a star…

Lightning Over the Lake

The setting is a sleepaway camp nestled at the foot of the Green Mountains in Vermont. The camp’s entrance is flanked by twin totem poles stenciled up and down with crudely carved letters that spell the name of the place: indian acres. Drive through the gate, and trails fork out to archery ranges, a dining…

The Stamp

I sought vengeance, and now I dream of forgiveness. Let me explain how that came about. I want to lay it all out. My friends, I hope this last journal of mine will reach you, so you can be with me, with my thoughts, as long as it takes you to read it, and I…

World Series, 1979

Dad, Todd, Mal, and me are sitting in the positions I’ve assigned us, and the Mormon Tabernacle Boring is singing the National Anthem really slowly. After forever, we all put our Orioles caps back on as the Pirates take the field, and it’s showtime. My palms are sweating. Mom comes in. “Uh-oh,” I say, not…

Before Long

In the days that summer when his mother had to work cleaning the cottages in Dáchenko and Kóslan, Anton was being watched by the Shurins. He was twelve and blind, and his mother feared leaving him alone. He spent his mornings working with Oleg Shurin in the tomato patches along the bluff, and in the…

The Long Game

Priscilla’s father comes to visit unannounced and buys her golf shoes, tight Guess? jeans, and a steak, medium rare. She pushes the pink plastic “medium rare” marker into the coin pocket of her jeans and forgets about it until the day after he dies, several months later, when she will find the thing on the…

Landscape with Flatiron

translated by Jay Rubin Junko was watching television when the phone rang a few minutes before midnight. Keisuke sat in the corner of the room wearing headphones, eyes half-closed, head swinging back and forth as his long fingers flew over the strings of his electric guitar. He was practicing a fast passage and obviously had…