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.
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…
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.
Directly after the arrival of the Armada, this model made sense, as the gap between Unthulanian and Human cultures prevented a commensurable exchange of practices…
“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.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
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.
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.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Before the headaches began, I thought myself sturdy: firm in my foundations, set square like a saltbox house.
Share some abandon.
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