Far behind the house’s rear, among moss and dead leaves was a spring. Connected to the spring by a small staircase of large rocks lie a stream that flowed as a river when it rained and ran dry through summer and winter. Insects–gnats, mosquitos, flies–danced above puddled water in the day, the light giving shape
CategoryFiction
Lament of Demeter
Among the silks, I felt for a bare arm. Among the racks of silk and chiffon, I felt for an arm that would be propped tenderly beside the body it belonged to, a body trying to make itself stand in the way of a whisper, or as translucent: a body that was hiding. My fingers
Candle Soup
The sterile metal of the needle pushed against my skin. It probed the quivering tissue, like a ripe grape. Then with skin pillowing around the tip, it sank beneath the surface. I suppressed a wince. It wasn’t so much the needle as what I knew was waiting for me in the next hour: crushing immobility
15 Possible Beginnings for my Autobiography
My character, Erick, opens the bathroom door but his bathroom is gone. Instead, he finds an exact replica of his bathroom. He immediately steps out, back into the real world. A cartographer drew such a loyal map of the city that the map was the size of the city. Had Erick been living in the
Triangles and Other Geometries
After maybe thirty hours of phone conversations I finally asked him if he was gay. I don’t usually have to ask, either I know or it doesn’t concern me. But this was a man who staged his selfies in historical fashion: Milan in the 70’s, New Orleans in the 30’s, you get the picture. Are
I see the glint of their eyes down the barrel of a wave
I see the glint of their eyes down the barrel of a wave. In Māori mythology, water is considered the foundation of all life. Tangaroa, atua of the sea, rivers and lakes and controller of the tides is the bridge and son of Ranginui (the sky) and Papatuanuku (the earth). Unlike the Western conception of
Of Clay and Wattles Made
A great many years ago – or maybe not so long ago – I’ll leave it to you to determine – it was decided, quite against my will, that I would take the Number Fourteen bus to school. The bus was a great beast of a thing. It rattled deafeningly as it struggled over mud-covered