[Fiction] A young girl encounters an older group of students: The morning of the abduction, Mrs. Allsop—dishevelled in a limp linen shirtdress—was wielding her secateurs up a ladder, pruning the climbing roses. She was immensely capable; tall and big-boned with a pink, pleasant face and dry yellow hair chopped sensibly short. Jane admired her mother […]
fiction
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[Fiction] A husband, feeling sick, leaves his father-in-law’s party early: At this point, the husband realizes that he doesn’t want to spend the night reading Rousseau in bed, alone. He thinks about going downstairs to the hotel bar. It’s the kind of thing he never does—but ten minutes later there he is, sitting at the […]
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[Fiction] A family prepares for their father’s business trip: Their Da was going away again, that’s all it was. Both boys had said nothing about it, but were awake at five and thumping downstairs and straight out to the garden, Jimbo still wearing pajamas and Shawn in yesterday’s clothes, probably no underpants—some objection he had […]
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What to Do?
[Fiction] A man’s romance with a psychic: The psychic from the Third Base suckered drunk-me into getting a reading: twenty buckaroos. She had a table set up and was circling the bar in her hoop earrings and a fake mole that was supposed to be gypsy somehow, looking for customers. Real gypsies have a hair […]
Posted inUncategorized
What to Do?
[Fiction] A man’s romance with a psychic: The psychic from the Third Base suckered drunk-me into getting a reading: twenty buckaroos. She had a table set up and was circling the bar in her hoop earrings and a fake mole that was supposed to be gypsy somehow, looking for customers. Real gypsies have a hair […]
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[Fiction] A couple returns home from Israel: It’s six-thirty now and the boys are back in bed; it’s early afternoon Israel time. For the moment, Noelle feels as if she’s in a bubble, lying awake next to Amram while the children are asleep. She presses her ear to the wall to see if her sisters […]
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[Fiction, 2012 Pen/O. Henry Winner] A son recalls an exiled life with his father, mother, and a maid: At the Magda Marina, he spent his time sunbathing and reading fat books: one on the Suez Crisis, one a biography of our late king, with his portrait on the cover. Whenever Father acquired a new book […]
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Break All the Way Down
[Fiction] A baby’s arrival stirs up difficult memories: I sat with the baby in the living room, setting her on a clean blanket. When I tired of watching her, I stretched out, resting my hand on her stomach. I fell asleep with the baby staring at me, her eyes wide open. In the morning, my […]
Posted inUncategorized
Break All the Way Down
[Fiction] A baby’s arrival stirs up difficult memories: I sat with the baby in the living room, setting her on a clean blanket. When I tired of watching her, I stretched out, resting my hand on her stomach. I fell asleep with the baby staring at me, her eyes wide open. In the morning, my […]
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[Fiction] The pressure of exams and college acceptances, and the decisions that stem from it: In the first quarter of sophomore year, Cindy got an A-minus in Chemistry, and Paul Takahashi caught up to her. We liked Paul okay, but once he’d won the top spot, we had trouble maintaining our good feelings toward him. […]