FICTION
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
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.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”
When I was on earth I was a pretty good kid. I only got drunk when I needed to get drunk.
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…
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
Before the headaches began, I thought myself sturdy: firm in my foundations, set square like a saltbox house.
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.
You’ve been dreading this day since the moment you found out you were pregnant—perhaps even before.
The most entertaining thing about Miguel is that when he was 13 he dislocated his shoulder playing basketball and can now pop it in and out of place. There is nothing particularly interesting about Miguel.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
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.
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.
And then he feels that familiar sensation of drifting—when his body untethers from the material world and he soon dissolves into a fine, floating mist that evaporates into the atmosphere.
Darkness always follows.
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?
Share some abandon.
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