A week before Christmas, Maggie’s son is married in the bare spot of land under the hemlocks where nothing ever grows. Maggie hangs white lights in the branches. She covers her son’s pregnant bride in a pale woolen blanket. She wakes early the morning of the wedding and spends hours digging a path through the fresh snow so that the guests—the bride’s aunt, and friends from the ranch where the young couple works—can come up to her cabin for warm bread and jam and champagne. At some point, glitter … [Read more...] about In Nature
Flash Fiction
Appointment
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, unwinding my scarf and piling my layers on an empty swivel chair beside the stylist’s station. The crumpled clothes looked shabby in the gleaming, mirrored room, like something you’d find under a bridge. I was wearing pretty much everything I owned. This little jaunt was the first time I’d left the house in weeks, and let me tell you, you could die out there. A band of polar winds high up in the atmosphere held the city hostage, locked in a bitter freeze. I exhaled … [Read more...] about Appointment
Lobsters
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
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
Killers
the water is deeper than it looks; and we’re not the worst swimmers, but it’s dark; we tend not to swim at night; no, we tend not to swim at night with guys; we all knew of the girl who drowned; she sank like a stone, they said; she was showing off that night, they said; the guys all said; tonight, it’s guys we meet at the boathouse; they’re here for the end of summer; they’re beautiful in a polished way; but we’re beautiful in that polished way; we look out across the water; we whisper … [Read more...] about Killers