If Bade chilled, took one two three seconds to look, he’d see that no part of that day made brain. First, he slept through his alarm, which meant he missed his carpool. Then his Uber driver, a man who was all teeth and forehead, lacked the vim necessary to ply Lagos traffic. Of course the AC was faulty, and with the windows down (Oga, I hope you don’t mind) they slugged from Surulere through Eko Bridge to Victoria Island, danfo fumes choking and trailer horns grating; two hours, for a journey … [Read more...] about Intimacy
Uncategorized
Issue 82
ISSUE 82 Featuring new stories by Lydi Conklin, Annie Liontas, Kyle McCarthy, Carrie R. Moore, KJ Nakazawa-Kern, and Colleen Rosenfeld. Lydi Conklin, "Sorry about the Wolf" I’d only hung out with Ana and Margarita a few times, and always with Rogelio, but I hated the way they talked, their eyes flitting back and forth between them like the mud-colored lizards hunting for flies in our yard. The two of them seemed to be in on a joke about life that I was too stupid to understand. But my … [Read more...] about Issue 82
When We Go, We Go Downstream
In the restaurant’s fading light, he tells the story to his woman. Warily, the way his father told it to him: There once lived a man named Elijah. A man who, among many other things—blacksmith, singer, lover of russet pears—had been born a slave. In those days, Texas had yet again changed its mind about what it was. It had belonged to Mexico, then became its own fearsome land, then joined Polk’s America, then splintered off with the rest of the rebellious South. Texas dreamed of cotton and … [Read more...] about When We Go, We Go Downstream
Archer’s Paradox
My boy Dr. Darren Wu is going through a divorce and we don’t know if he’s alright. He did buy a bow and arrow and a bullseye, but since his yard is short, he extends the range of his target practice by sliding open the back door and standing in the living room and shooting arrows through multiple rooms of the house at the target. Darren showed us a video of this, me and our other friend, the camera tight on him in his teal hoodie with a wrist protector fastened over the left sleeve, his phone … [Read more...] about Archer’s Paradox
The Skilled Anatomist
It was as though part of my breast had been cut out by a skilled anatomist and replaced by an equal part of immaterial suffering . . . And however neatly the wound may have been stitched together, one lives rather uncomfortably when regret for the loss of another person is substituted for one’s entrails. —Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time She told me about the procedure the same way she was always telling me about her newest exercise regime or dietary restriction or partially prepared … [Read more...] about The Skilled Anatomist
The First Wife of Bluebeard
CHARLEY – 2007 How it worked: we were bait. We wore platform heels. We had our hair down. We were high from performing, and some of us wanted wine and some of us coke and some a bucket of ice water for our calves. What we didn’t want was dinner on steaming platters beneath heat lamps behind the curtain marked Staff, though we did want éclairs, profiteroles, opera cake, anything from the dessert trays put out for the patrons with coffee and brandy. Sugar we loved. Ballerinas are sugar … [Read more...] about The First Wife of Bluebeard