FICTION
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
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.
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
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.
She turns her back for me to fasten the rows of metal hooks. Why isn’t our small, tender freedom enough?
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
Mama sped along the highway, unbothered by bits of gravel that flew up from the front tires and struck the windshield of the sedan.
My new neighbor is making a violin from a cigar box. He got the cigar box from a guard. The guard, presumably, got it from outside the Fence.
I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.
When I was on earth I was a pretty good kid. I only got drunk when I needed to get drunk.
The young boy goes to bed and kisses his mother goodnight. He goes to bed and closes his eyes and wishes his family good sleep.
When Laika the space dog comes back, bulleted to earth in a tiny white escape pod that dissolves upon opening, nobody can believe it.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
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.
Share some abandon.
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