FICTION
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
When Laika the space dog comes back, bulleted to earth in a tiny white escape pod that dissolves upon opening, nobody can believe it.
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’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.
To be encased, Clint had always thought, was foolishness. Why allow yourself to be open to such sorrow?
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.
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.
Mama sped along the highway, unbothered by bits of gravel that flew up from the front tires and struck the windshield of the sedan.
A tortured simper uncoils itself across my mouth as I open another bottle of Penis wine.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
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.
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
Before the headaches began, I thought myself sturdy: firm in my foundations, set square like a saltbox house.
You’ve been dreading this day since the moment you found out you were pregnant—perhaps even before.
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 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.
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.
I don’t know why I was still talking about the rapture. I certainly didn’t believe in it. Regardless, it remained a thief…
Share some abandon.
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