Yellow Kodak Tara had been cleaning for three hours. Grandma Peters’ house was not messy per se, but it had a certain disorganization that called for a high level of sorting skills. It was the type of house that was only organized to her and no one else. This is the...
Bloodsport masquerading as Midwestern marriage. For seven years and sixteen days, Marge and Jim Schmidt engaged in a silent-treatment cockfight, with every successive daily strikethrough on the couple’s laminated kitchen calendar representing a dark testament to...
I’ve lost control of my mind, and I don’t think I’ll get it back. There’s nothing left they can do for me here, now that my face is stitched. The nurse has been nice enough but I’m taking a bed that the doctor doesn’t think I deserve. Unlike the dead man who landed me...
By the time the music cut and the lights softened into that sickly gold that meant closing. Ava’s feet were numb. It wasn’t the kind of numb that felt like relief. She felt like her feet didn’t belong to her anymore. She counted her money in the dressing room with the...
The movie house was not nearly as crowded as Alice had hoped it would be. She glancedaround at the few clusters of people littering the lobby. Some stood near the snack and popcorncounter; others hovered across from the ushers, waiting for the okay to head to their...
We never had one when I was a kid because Mum was British. Well, my grandparents were British, Mum was born in Charleston, South Carolina. But she picked up the accent at home and worked hard not to lose it. She would say things like loo, and carpark, and petrol. So,...
“Oprah invited you for tea.” “Again?” I roll down my waistband. “That’s four invites this month.” Kendra places the syringe horizontal between her teeth so her hands are free to heat the cooker. “Five if you count Montecito.” She takes the syringe out of her...
She rested at an empty table in the restaurant. Her purchases propped across from her as if they were company. Stranger’s conversations swirled around her with excitement of the season and she heard the speakers overhead. Let her heart be light. It had been four...
“Is Maith An Scéalaí An Aimsir.” “Time is a good storyteller.” -Irish Proverb I watched in fascination as Mirai Enog engaged in a tug of war with her last breath, a horrible wheezing sound accompanying the two of us. The stubborn woman she was, she refused to concede...
Hot and sweaty, Cousin Kieran clings to my body, as we mash together. He can barely hold on to me as I have no fat. “No love handles,” as he puts it. He never gave me a second glance all those years at family holiday parties, but now, I’m so slim that my breasts...