FICTION

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Albert Camus
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.

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.

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.

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.

Chrysalis

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

view of earth from space
The Scattering

Allanson looked out of the viewport, at the ragtag flotilla of ships trailing behind, some of them slow to catch up. It was to be expected with the little time that they’d had to cobble the fleet together.

graffiti on cement
Slabs

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

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…

Nautilus

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

Cost of Care

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.

The Nightmare of the Waking World

“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”

Sisters of the Divine Apparatus

The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.

sun in clouds
The Rapture

I don’t know why I was still talking about the rapture. I certainly didn’t believe in it. Regardless, it remained a thief…

dead roses
The Cycle

It all started with the curse of my tits. Women’s bodies are cursed. Everyone tries to look at them, everyone tries to ignore them.

The Sweetness

I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.

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.

The Drift

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.

rotarty phone
My Wife’s Phone

Sex is not a thank you card in this house.

Behind This Fence in Future Tense

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.

Theoretical Debate

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.

Share some abandon.

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