Catastrophe. Social disaster. Already noon and not enough dancers, Kitty told the pool boys.
The pool boys were piecing together a parquet dance floor on her back lawn. They said, We can dance.
I’m sure you can, dear, Kitty said. She could just picture it: scandal. Maybe she’d take up their offer. God knew her husband and the other patricians of Oyster Cove were too dignified to kick up their heels.
Continue reading “The Last Fourth of July by Scott Pomfret”
The kid had this puffy bee-sting face I wanted to shove into the toilet bowl. I liked him as soon as he came, breathless and sweating, through the door. I liked him more when he offered me a cigarette.
Continue reading “The Clown and The Kid by Ashley Laughlin”
‘I’m so sorry, I really wasn’t paying attention,’ the middle-aged man was told by an older woman. They were the same height. George, being six foot three, had found the novelty of not looking down for their conversation quite refreshing, though he suspected in the morning he’d discover a plethora of aching muscles he never once suspected he possessed. Her attention was fixed on undexterous fingers shaking an empty not-quite-glass, a bubbly flute of clouded plastic. It was as if, George imagined, the last drop of wine had proven impossible for her to access, and for the life of her she had found no way to solve the puzzle. She kept holding the flute up to the noisy strip-light, seemingly either looking for fingerprints or a miracle. She appeared forensic in her analysis of unobtainable alcohol. George was reminded of a video he’d once seen on YouTube, of a goldfish obsessed with its image in a mirror. The poor fish had been unable to free itself from the mistaken belief it was threatened by itself. It was the saddest thing George had seen.
Continue reading “Keep Dancing by Antony Osgood”
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