FICTION

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Albert Camus
In Rare Cases…

You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.

Here in East Greenwich

He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.

The Rift

None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.

salt lake
Climb The Highest Mountain

When I was on earth I was a pretty good kid. I only got drunk when I needed to get drunk.

Damn Good Listener

I know you shouldn’t keep wild animals as pets, but I’ve had the same spider in my bathroom sink for over two weeks.

Swoon

Jenna says that he typically goes for redheads, so I run to Target and buy a box of hair dye.

Junk

It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.

Oppressive and Certain Decay

I pushed my nose to within an inch from the rug. I sniffed, and sniffed, and I smelled something…not quite right, but I couldn’t place it.

rotarty phone
My Wife’s Phone

Sex is not a thank you card in this house.

Chrysalis

To be encased, Clint had always thought, was foolishness. Why allow yourself to be open to such sorrow?

graffiti on cement
Slabs

We drifted junk with a sledgehammer looking for juice. Sometimes the rage.

Out of the Harbor and Into the Open Sea

I’d never heard of anyone having a second baby right after the first one, but everything was so strange in those early days of motherhood that I just acted on instinct.

When Robin Hood Was Caught Dead To Rights

and on and on and on and on they ran, the Merry Men, running from a hundred and one arrows bought with taxes stolen twice over…

Dead History

Another image rises to us both: A man hunched before a TV, watching historical documentaries, correcting incorrect facts. Rasputin was not a priest, damn it.

The Perfect Love

She said I would find my perfect love when on the brink of death.

Caricature of B. Lovely

I point my camera towards B. Lovely and she is sitting on the curb.

cupcakes
Pleasure That Cannot Be Felt as Such

I loved Rena as much as a patient could love their gynecologist. We had tea together in her office. I cried when she asked how I was doing, and she showed me pictures of her terriers.

homecoming king and queen
Point Pleasant

Hitting up homes peopled by those with nothing much to lose was an easy score. The less you had, the less likely you were to defend it. But this home was different. Its residents had a lot to lose and the will to fight for it.

Nautilus

She turns her back for me to fasten the rows of metal hooks. Why isn’t our small, tender freedom enough?

You and Jane

You’ve been dreading this day since the moment you found out you were pregnant—perhaps even before.

Share some abandon.

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