Drowning
The horn sounded and the train doors opened, giving Jerome the opportunity to watch the people crash like a wave into the train. He enjoyed people watching, enjoying seeing who was on their way, and who was, perhaps, even running away. It was, in fact, one of his favourite hobbies. In this age of technology, […]
Ghosts
I started hanging out with historical ghosts. I’d lost my job teaching history, my wife Betty ran off, called me Mr. Malaise. They commiserated over my lost job, love. They had lost positions. I had vodkas with Nicholas II, danced on tables with Rasputin. Nicholas and I got drunk, thought a Turkish restaurant was Constantinople. […]
No Future Without Her – A Child Prodigy
The scene Hope found herself in was nothing like the one she had left moments ago after stepping into the rainbow her new displacement machine had created. Shards of glass lay glittering all over the ground, mixed with pieces of a world which no longer existed. Buildings lay crumbled and burned, and the chunk of […]
What We Know About Death
Chapter 1: Mother and the Chocolate Cake Our cake is velvet-crumbed, slivers cut one by one, each melting on the tongue, dark communion wafer. Mother raises her head, lips painted with chocolate: her mouth knows a secret taste. Shall we have milk? For milk and chocolate want to mingle, to marry. Sky-roofed, our pantry is […]
H2Oh No
It seemed like it had rained forever. The rain wouldn’t stop and the day was filling up. Like me, people were on their way to work and struggled along as they waded through the flooded pavements. The roads were okay, so I don’t know why we didn’t use them instead. A house I know at […]
Replacing the Vacuum
We did not choose our son to replace the vacuum. He discovered plenty of dirt on his own, and when the Hoover broke, he took to it. First, he rolled around collecting glitter and string. Lint flattened out under his roller-pin frame. Cat fur strung around his neck, and to regain mobility we scissored free […]
SOS
Jake’s life was saved when he a was seventeen-year-old skinny boy dressed all in black, walking out of Grand Central Station with his own song blasting on his Walkman. At the time, he lived and breathed rock and roll. It would all have come to a halt if that Manhattan businessman had not grabbed Jake […]
Roundabouts
She doesn’t know if she should leave him. He has become too distant. Martin never looks at her when she tries to talk with him. He always has somewhere else he’d rather be. And now she has lost him at The Fair. Anne edges through the crowd past the food stands. The smell of fried […]