On dates, he likes to trot out the guessing game about his job to spice things up; it never fails to grease the wheels of conversation on the occasions that they’ve ground to a halt. He makes suggestive eye contact over his steak, whispers ‘it involves being naked’ to scandalised eyes and screamy giggles. When …
She had finally managed to get him to come out with her. When he mentioned how gutted he was to miss out on tickets to the exhibition, she happily paid Dixy565 over the odds on eBay. Deconstructed wave sounds juxtaposed with audio of people eating, played in white rooms featuring images of dead sea creatures. …
Little black books are for City boys and D-list celebrities. Not supermarket assistant managers with chronic irritable bowel syndrome. But, after you’ve hit your 30s and done the rounds on Tinder, you need to start keeping records. 29 MAY DAISY “Those bitches who were always mummy and daddy’s favourite” Don’t need to be Freud …
We’ve been like Sisyphus for long, going up and down, but we always move on, for that’s life, he says, a bit absurd, and I nod and hold his hand as we climb and climb and climb. There comes another turn and I see it, I see disasters before they happen, I see them even …
The End of Us and Everything Before and After by Mileva Anastasiadou Read More »
The fortune teller’s daughter did not inherit her mother’s gift of sight, but rather her father’s nimble fingers and sleight of hand. While her mother whispered visions into eager ears with unsettled hearts, her father wandered between striped tents and carnival lights, alleviating pocket trinkets from those whose hands were too full of cheap prizes …
George follows me everywhere, so I tell him to stay and keep an eye on Mom while I scout our new neighborhood. Since the night we snuck out of Daryl’s house, she can’t finish a sentence. She stands in the kitchen, unpacking and repacking boxes, staring out the window, flinching at every horn or revved …
A crow performed an awkward dance while Samuel filled up the car, unaware, and I watched from the passenger seat. The gas station was busy at the end of rush hour, but the crow didn’t seem fazed by the traffic. She bobbed near a dumpster in the parking lot, picking up, shaking, dropping a crumb-filled …
A huge beast had flung itself against our walls. Words and pictures caught inside us were retrieved to heave up to our conversations. This is how we feel. This is how we understand. The first Saturday was spent in hand-wringing agitation. Our ship was built in days. Rags of plans and lengths of hope were …
She might have snuck the boy back out her window. She could have hidden the evidence of her sins and thought more carefully about how she’d lie. But Olivia was fourteen and scared and stupid, so she gave into the pounding at her locked bedroom door, right away, and opened it with no underwear on. …
Clair had a love-hate relationship with his Uncle Mike, who always took him along when he went hunting, shooting, or fishing with his drinking buddies. He taught Clair how to pluck birds, skin animals, and clean fish, but never how to shoot a gun, never how to drink a beer. It was all work and …
This was back during my illustrious undergraduate career, which is a different story for a different day, but the experience still stands out, the cloistered stillness, the dead of night, a crucified Christ standing sentry, watching voyeuristically from the steeple of the ornate church. We had been flirting all night, and sex was imminent; it …
I Had An Orgasm in a Graveyard Once by Shannon Frost Greenstein Read More »
He asks me over and over as he looks at his wedding ring what’s the harm in it, spending time. Under his collared shirt I’ve seen little Maria, tattooed on his shoulder, the one with perfect forehand strokes on the courts below. I don’t have the heart to remind him that in a past life, we …