Fiction

Tires crunch against the crushed stone driveway, and a flash of headlights crosses Kent’s bedroom window, waking him from a light sleep. But he wasn’t asleep, he tells himself. Merely resting, eyes closed. Listening. Just as, when Rose was still in high school, he lay in bed after midnight and listened for the sound of…

Mr. Tao had outlived his wife but that didn’t bother him, he always said. In time he would catch up to her in heaven. Each day he waited calmly in his chair. The winter light moved square by square across the tile floor. On Friday afternoons when I came by he looked at me through…

The remarkable thing in dreams: people say what he never hears in waking. Fat. They say it to his face, not behind his back, or clear of earshot. The word is succulent in their mouths-Faaat-stretching out like the waist on his sansabelt pants. Nothing derogatory about it, only an unabashed honesty. On these mornings, for…

August 25. I’ve really had very little chance to pick up this notebook in the three weeks since I took up my new duties in this village with the unpronounceable name of Asvestohori. My group is officially assigned the task of distributing medical supplies to our troops quartered here and the task of supervising the…

It was his father’s wedding day. Roland had flown into London the night before and slept at the hotel off Russell Square where he’d stayed during the last days of his mother’s illness. The ceremony, at the parish church near his father’s new house in Suffolk, was set for noon; reception at the house to…

The Rio Grande should be repaired sooner or later because it’s a shame what happened to it which is not pretty. Irrigation and all and no sturgeon any more and pubic hairs and pollution. -Harve Benedict, English 12, Elfego Baca High School O hundreds and hundreds of Harves, your writing should have been the death…

Last week we had a riot. Pomo, my boyfriend, tried to kill himself with a pencil. Everybody freaked. Then eight pigs rushed in and beat the crap out of us. I got put into The Coat. I hate being put into that thing. You can’t breathe. It smells like piss and shit. Though I couldn’t…

Go ahead. Open it. I think you’ll like it. I made that wrapping paper myself. It’s similar to rubber, but not exactly. You kind of have to peel it off. Do you like the avocado color? I bet you’ve never seen wrapping paper that thick, huh? Oh, I forgot to tell you-if you touch it…

Hello, readereaper. It’s certainly been a while. May I take your coat? It is four a.m. and my parents and sister are gone to North Carolina for two weeks’ vacation, which means I have the house to myself. So: I come out of the bathroom and the cat is sitting on top of the humidifier…