The over-ruling concept in public disease prevention is to never go into a wet, dirty, graffiti-ridden toilet stall. Common sense demands you search for the cleanest cubicle. However, if none is available, do not hesitate to comb the nearby neighborhood for a decent...
Issue Eight
Stepping out
The coat rack that once held the jackets, hats, and mufflers of her children now danced her across the room to the salsa beat of her Argentine roots. Her husband had been the last to go and still did not understand why he had gotten booted from the family home. The...
Does It Have Eyes?
From a distance, they looked like rocks. Large, sea-beaten and sandy rocks. A foggy day at Drake’s Beach. The sea was quiet and the world still. You could ride a bus to the lighthouse but the lines were long and we were only there for the day and who wants to...
Steering the Whale and A feeling
Steering the whale. driving through town in a car with sunglasses, like steering a whale between reefs. earth laid out; all open, bare, all invitation. the sun drying rocks and passing girls in french summer dresses - sweet as growing fruit. the radio goes - talk or...
The Carnation Cafe
The silverware in the Carnation Café had the thinnest metal of any silverware I’d ever seen I was surprised that the pieces we’d been given wrapped in a napkin weren’t bent My wife and I were out for brunch It was our forty-third wedding anniversary but it wasn’t a...
Magic for the Embassy
A green wig on a willow stump. Dog’s blood in every catbrier berry. Trace of moonlight skint from a window. Rainbow pressed deep into a voice. The ambassador’s three daughters are whispering to their youngest brother’s ghost. The ghost is slanting an ember across his...
Oasis
on winter afternoons the sea her eyes towns imploding nothing seems to add up implicitly we take...
In Memoriam
She has long legs, wears a short black dress, and dark sunglasses. The direction of her head indicates she's taking in my pony tail, and baggy shorts. I see myself reflected in her shades—a stocky man with a septum ring. “I want the words 'In Memoriam'...
Testimonial
My wife and I were drinking in the kitchen when our son drove the neighbors’ van into the living room. We polished off our round before heading in. Our eyes were, of course, in danger, but our feet were protected by Kore-X slippers. Kore-X slippers combine the comfort...
Nothing is Ever One Thing
The plane crashed into the mountain. It lost altitude suddenly, irredeemably. There was chaos in the cockpit. Seatbelts clicked shut, oxygen masks dropped—a monstrous fiery blast... *** Roger, speaking in gasps after running through the airport,...