“But as they burned, disappearing irrevocably one after the other, you stopped believing that there was any purpose in a book’s existence. Or perhaps the only one to have worked out their purpose was the Sarajevan author and bibliophile who, instead of using expensive firewood, warmed his fingers last winter on the flames of Dostoevsky,
Tagfiction month
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
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
The Last Forest
Except for the light breeze everything is different from all she had ever known. The temperature, the humidity, that she cannot see the horizon, the colors and the way the light dances over the ground. She has never smelled anything like this before, but it is not unpleasant. It comes closest to a combination of heavy wet mud and the youngest grasses. Behind her she could still have seen the familiar blue sky, green water and yellow sand through the trees, in case she had looked back.
Home Alone
Would you like a sample? asked a woman in a uniform just past the store’s threshold, gesturing out a sample in a small white cup, similarly to how pills were handed out in prisons on TV shows. The rows of food reached nearly to the ceiling of the store, so high they required a forklift to be lowered down to the patrons. A child begged her mother for a sample of an unfrozen fried Wonton appetizer, which her mother steadfastly denied. Sure, Stacey said, accepting the small cup, finding it pleasantly crunchy with afternotes of carrot.