Fiction

When she left in the mornings, her husband and baby were still asleep. It was four o’clock, black and silent, a time when it felt illegal to be awake. She laid her clothes out the night before so she could dress in the dark, just jeans and a sweatshirt, sneakers and socks. And earrings—though no…

Call number: 305.235 G127t It is evening, crack Internet researcher, and you have fortified yourself. At the bodega. Your form is top, your liver is poisoned, you have steadied your frail nerves with the requisite malt liquor product. Ambrosia of the Gods! Sixty-four ounces of the fruit of the plains, the hop, and you are…

  The taxi pulled to a stop in front of a brownstone whose wrought-iron gate looked oddly familiar. It was a rainy Sunday evening. The last traces of light hung morosely in the sky, illuminating rows of brownstones whose façades were uniformly lifeless, as though everyone inside were hiding, or away. Jason fumbled with his…

  Louis liked the paddle more than the man who swung it. He respected the instruction, the ritual, the organization of his thoughts when the paddle struck its target. He enjoyed the stinging clarity, the expedient way the paddle transmitted its message. "You’re a bad boy, aren’t you? You’re Daddy’s little pig," the man with…

I think the last time I saw you may have been that time near the church. I still like that church despite this, though the church is also other things to me. In fact, more and more I wish I remembered those other things that are called permanent, inviolable, impregnable to assault or trespass, secure…

As the lights go up, a man standing on a small platform facing stage right (an imaginary audience there) waves one more time at those people and turns and steps down toward us. He is dressed in an impeccably casual way: slacks and a sport coat, tie optional. Around his neck on a ribbon is…

Helen Swann shivers in shirtsleeves at the bus stop, coatless and confident the day will warm. The city bus, as it lumbers toward her, cracks the ice that lines the gutter. Frost nubs its broad, bald forehead and clouds the immense windshield. Like glaucoma, Helen thinks. It’s one of the old buses, which means the…

  [postcard text] I am awfully fond of this garden. How pretty are those plants & flowers! There is a grotto in this garden I was afraid to enter as it is too dark there, but at last decided. It is full of passages, the water runs over the walls outside. With best wishes Yours…