FICTION
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.
Ever since your son brought you here, things have been different. He was crying when he dropped you off. You still don’t know why.
A tortured simper uncoils itself across my mouth as I open another bottle of Penis wine.
When I was on earth I was a pretty good kid. I only got drunk when I needed to get drunk.
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.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
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.
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.
To be encased, Clint had always thought, was foolishness. Why allow yourself to be open to such sorrow?
“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”
You’ve been dreading this day since the moment you found out you were pregnant—perhaps even before.
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
I don’t know why I was still talking about the rapture. I certainly didn’t believe in it. Regardless, it remained a thief…
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.
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.
Share some abandon.
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