Tom’s barrel chest jerked up, then down at regular intervals, following the dictates of the hospital ventilator. Attached to the machine, he seemed all torso, his lower half an afterthought, like the straw-haired Resusci Annies that he’d haul around the high school gym during CPR units. That was long ago, when he was the coach and Helen was the music teacher and they were, improbably perhaps, in love. Fluids skied down IV lines and into his arm. Bruises bloomed at the injection sites. Soft … [Read more...] about Lobsters
Contributions
We have been practicing esusu for a long time. Our mothers did it, our mothers’ mothers did it. And probably their own mothers, too. We’ve never had a problem of this substance before, nothing so significant until this woman showed up. Nothing we couldn’t fix, anyway. This is how our system works: each woman has one month to contribute a certain amount of naira. Our names are on a list, and when that month is over, whoever’s number one takes it all. Then the contributions begin again, and at … [Read more...] about Contributions
Belly of the Beast
It’s Saturday night, and the beast has swallowed my husband. One minute he was there, the next, gone—just a shout, half smothered, as the creature engulfed him. I didn’t see the actual swallowing. I arrived seconds later, in time to see the wolfish thing licking its jowls. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen: Eyes small and black like papaya seeds. Hispid hair covering its limbs. Claws like small sickles. Tongue: long and leathery. I would have attacked it, grabbed a fire iron or my … [Read more...] about Belly of the Beast
Web Exclusive Interview: Nora Lange
In Nora Lange's flash fiction, “Her Cousin Lena,” Rose records a long-distance phone call with her mother. Their exchange reveals a disconnect that, though often funny, describes the “love and horror” of a certain flavor of mother-daughter relationship. Haunting the conversation is the absent figure of Rose’s cousin, Lena, to whom the mother constantly compares her daughter, and who becomes the axis point of their unaddressed tensions. We chatted recently with Nora about her story and … [Read more...] about Web Exclusive Interview: Nora Lange
Enid & Floyd & the Moon
Enid leans over the sink while her husband, Floyd, dyes her sparse hair. His veined, shaky hands are covered in the clear plastic gloves that came in the Clairol “Flame Red” coloring kit. The gloves are too small and stop below his wrists. It’s awkward, but everything for him is awkward or impossible. Using an old pair of children’s scissors, he struggles to snip the top off the squeeze bottle. His hands feel like dumb paws. Enid’s back is stiff with age, but she manages to bend forward … [Read more...] about Enid & Floyd & the Moon
Web Exclusive Interview: Min Han
If you remove technology and industry, anything remotely modern about human beings, what sort of animal are we? What is the shape of our heart, after all? To explore these questions, Min Han went back to the Stone Age for August's Web Exclusive, "Ara's Man." We talked with the debut author about telling a universal story set in another world, about the importance of travel, and how bullshit it is that there aren't more stories where early females occupy the significant roles (that archaeology … [Read more...] about Web Exclusive Interview: Min Han