Felicia sat down on the boulder at the edge of the mountain. She thought about a thing or two, then thought about God.
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Tag: relationships
What’s Left by Todd Dodson
He settled the last of the old Amazon boxes in the bed of the pickup, an intractable, unstrung guitar neck poking out from the middle, with the faded moon looming eerie in the midday sky like the cover of some science fiction paperback. He threw a blue tarp over the mess, then took his time stitching a length of twine through the grommets, around the cleats, a clever hitch knot at the end, even opening the driver’s side door before finally, finally turning to me standing in the hot pea gravel, glass of ice tea melting in my hand, before saying, “Well, that’s it.”
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Week 492: Parental Wisdom; August Reading; Food and Fodder
Parental Guidance
There’s one bit of advice that my late father gave me when I was too young to scrutinize advice, yet it remains something I’ve neither forgotten nor defied: “Don’t eat canned stewed tomatoes.”
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Ray by Ted Gross
When the shock of the diagnosis wore off, I figured if I was going down the tubes anyway I might as well take some people with me. So I made a list.
On top of the list was Ray, who beat me up good in junior high school.
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We Were Everything and Nothing by Lydia Baham
It was the second day of our trip to Madrid. We were in a restaurant not far from Plaza Mayor with the massive stone walls whispering the secrets they knew, trying to eavesdrop on ours. We had almost finished the bottle of Cava, I was a little dizzy from the alcohol and too high on you, my friend. You watched me with those magnet eyes of yours, a wicked smile played on your lips, and I was asking myself if you’re even real.
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Nana Won’t Rise Up from the Dead by Margo Griffin
I peel off the paint bottle’s seal, and a strong chemical smell wafts off the top. The scent reminds me of the hospital’s ICU corridors and the ache that filled my chest when my mother and I entered Room 520A to see Nana a few days before. I swirl around different colored paints and recreate the fiery orange sunset and the same brilliant blue sky from last year when Nana and I walked along the shore during our annual beach trip after Easter Sunday Mass. My little brother plunges without thought into his palette and haphazardly washes his brush against his egg’s shell. His designs turn out formless, and his colors mix into drab shades of brown and gray. He eyes my egg and then looks down at his, and his cheeks flush. His eyes flash in warning as his idea is hatched in seconds. Still, I don’t move fast enough and watch in horror as he smashes the Easter Egg I painted for Nana to the floor, sending pieces of memory flying through the air; these things are fragile.
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Always, Winona by Hannah Richardson
Her name was Winona. Winona on damp, drizzly school days when she raised her hand fearless of appearing callous or insufferable. Winnie on wine-dark nights she downed canned gin cocktails and let her nose go runny under porch lights. Nona inside her honey-sulked home where windows overlooked fields of magnolias whose petals sunk under the weight of thunderstorms.
But she was always Winona to me.
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La Cienaga Boulevard by Harrison Kim
“It’s hard to believe I exist in this place,” I tell my wife Rita.
On this trip to her hometown L. A. I’ve felt increasingly unreal. My eyes scan the ground, try to see this city at a basic level. There’s too much to take in if I raise my sight, the sheet white mist, streets lined with tents, people staggering and shouting.
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Julia by Chloe M. Dehon
The sun is too hot for May, and my arm is starting to burn. That’s what I’m thinking of when I’ve missed my afternoon bus. That and my sister, Julia. My name is Elijah William Scott. And I am the reason my sister is dead. There’s a shortcut you can take off of Sawmill Road to get to our house. I don’t take it anymore. I don’t need to look at the drawings, the flowers, the “We Miss You” signs. It’s all bullshit. It doesn’t mean anything. She won’t know.
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The Story of Jimmy Gray by Gerald Coleman
“What the people believe is true.”
—Nanabush, Son of the West Wind, Grandson of the Moon
I was a story I told myself.
My body required mechanical help with inputs and outputs, causes and effects—the purpose of one function needed to be fitted to the function of a higher purpose, from swerve of nerve to bend of bone, synapse to neuron across the junctions electric.
Body shifts, reflex tests, muscle pulls were performed. Others asked questions neither understood nor answerable.
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literally stories 