FICTION
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
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.
When I was on earth I was a pretty good kid. I only got drunk when I needed to get drunk.
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.
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.
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.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
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.
Before the headaches began, I thought myself sturdy: firm in my foundations, set square like a saltbox house.
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.
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.
I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.
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.
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.
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
To be encased, Clint had always thought, was foolishness. Why allow yourself to be open to such sorrow?
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.
“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”
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.
Share some abandon.
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