He was reading something. He was at the bottom of the paper, but he didn’t remember what was in the middle or at the top. They were important, these letters on paper. His job was a letters-on-paper kind of job so he guessed that made him important.
All in Fiction
He was reading something. He was at the bottom of the paper, but he didn’t remember what was in the middle or at the top. They were important, these letters on paper. His job was a letters-on-paper kind of job so he guessed that made him important.
Alice looked at Henry for one long moment before nodding, and when she did he could hear her teeth clicking against the barrel of the gun and he shivered at the sound. He closed his eyes for a second and forced himself to swallow. He opened his eyes and looked at Alice. “Do you know why you want to do this?”
There is always a battle between the beautiful and the cliché. If a beautiful thing is written a thousand times and again does it become less beautiful?
William followed Dr Poots downstairs into a dark room that smelled strongly of disinfectant, like an operating theatre or a caretaker’s closet. An electric light stuttered into life overhead then hummed along steadily.
Little Dan squatted against the wall of the gondola and cried quietly into his folded arms. Elizabeth leaned against the rail and stared out at the sunrise just breaking the treetops. Somewhere out there, in the city, a soft boom clouded into the morning and a fist of smoke rose from the horizon. The balloon rose with it.
It suddenly occurred to Amy that the one person she wanted to talk to was the one person who remained elusive, hidden, actually, by the blacked-out glass of his Ram truck. The driver had not appeared. Between the tinted windows and the reflections off the glass, she couldn’t be sure who was in the truck or how many there might be.
By the side of the road, I screamed myself hoarse, pacing back and forth, unable to stop looking at the flattened car. I want to die, I want to die, I want to die, too, I kept saying.
Our naming the men reached its peak with the Prophet. The gist of the joke is this dirty little man walking quickly around town, always with his head turned slightly to the right, mumbling and gesturing to himself as he goes, is actually talking to God.
Your feet start to hurt just before the dinner rush; only a few tourists complaining of sand, how it gets under their skin and irritates. Smiling with each order, your fingers can barely keep up. Some of the men glance at your exposed legs, despite their wives and girlfriends. “Whatever gets ya the best tip,” Nellie says as you pin and spin orders. She trained you two months ago, every piece of advice replaced with an endless clutter of expectations. You only hope you won’t still be working here in ten years, flirting to pay the rent.
His elbow hurts my ribs and something clashes against my forehead. The scarf gets knocked off me and I squint into the sunlight of a Dromore market day.
There’s a trace of what must be blood on my gloves but not enough to scare me. I hear the passing guffaws at our tumble. He stinks of whiskey and I can’t bare to look at him.
The girl is waiting on the median for the light to change and the traffic to come to a halt. When it does, she steps down onto the street and walks in between the stopped cars, slowly passing each one, a cardboard sign held chest-high. Her eyeglasses reflect the harsh glare of the headlights and look like two white squares sitting on her face. She is probably fifteen or sixteen. Her hair is clean, pulled back neatly in a ponytail; her backpack is new, as are her boots—hardly a scuff or a stain. My emotions are mixed. I feel sorry for her, life out here is hard beyond belief, but I’m also relieved, in a “big sigh” sort of way. No doubt, like the rest of us, she has some sad stories to tell. No, not sad. Fucking heartbreaking.
The pounding in Amana’s temples won’t let up, and it’s beginning to scare her. She has had headaches before, but this is something different—it feels like some kind of creature has invaded her body and is occupying every square inch of it, from the tips of her fingers, which won’t stop tingling, to the pit of her stomach, which feels like it is being stretched and twisted and kneaded like bread dough.
About a week after it all happened, a friend of mine texted me. He said he needed to talk.
I’d known Chris since the late 90s, when I lived in Salt Lake City Utah. Chris now lives in Nevada, in Las Vegas with his boyfriend. It’s not really relevant but they broke up in January sometime over increasing tension in their household. Chris’ boyfriend hadn’t voted in the election. It wasn’t something Chris could let go.
Here’s what the random word generator gave me: “copper, explain, ill-fated, truck, neat, unite, branch, educated, tenuous, hum, decisive, notice.” I was a detective working clues.
The children appear from the edges. Their faces set. Their bodies are covered in iridescent powders that shimmer in hues that could only be seen in dreams. We have been gathered in the square to wait. Our kin have been gathered to watch. The children walk around us in a pack, sniffing, running towards us and back again to their circle. Worn, brown leather pouches hang around their necks, swaying with their movement.
No one wanted to hang out with Janie anymore and I thought that was unfair. It could have been any number of things that turned the group off to her but in my book she was better than alright. Maybe I was being sentimental but Janie was one of ours and I wasn't ready to let her go.
"On with the American machine, down with grass and trees!" Dad said. I laughed, because, for fuck's sake, why was it time to turn the vacant lot next door into a new parking lot? The town was nothing BUT parking lots. We had just found out about the city’s decision, which gave me a helpless feeling.
It was inside the desk where she hid all of her secrets. On the surface were the objects that immediately spoke of the history she didn’t want to hide. The mahogany pencil boxed, handmade and carved with intricate leaves and vines, given to her by her grandmother on the day of her high school graduation; the framed photo of her grandmother, who did not live to see her college graduation; and her favorite coffee mug, the one she says she can’t work without.
So what do you do if you wake up and realize that the gently marinated and care fully crafted and harmoniously preserved memory of the you in your mind’s mirror first formed over twenty years ago, the you that was your most perfected self and doing the best impression of you that you have ever done, the you that you heretofore looked back on wistfully that existed before the stock market crashes and the psychotic ex and the security pat-downs and the parent-teacher meetings and the terrorism and the internet (parental controls, password changes, and screen pop-ups ‘oh my!’)…
“Who woulda thought the desert be this fucking cold?” He tried to raise his shoulders to his ears, but they kept shivering down. It hurt to look at the stars, they were so blistered white and scattered.