A New Kind of Literary Pulse

One March afternoon in 1969 I was on the deck of a Chinese junk listening to the water clop against the wooden hull and enjoying a breeze that blew toward the South China Sea. The junk bobbed ... [+]

The doctors, explaining the consent form, referred to him as an allergen. That's the only reason he could figure they prescribed Claritin. Well, technically they didn't prescribe Claritin, being ... [+]

It was the first time that I had ever hated the sound of my own name. "Tommy, you're up," the coach had yelled down from the entrance of the dugout. I was sitting on the end of the bench next to my ... [+]

"Voicemail. Faaabulous. Anyway... Good morning. I've arrived. And let me tell you: There's nothing like heading to a job interview and praying to God that you don't get it. (Oh this is Amelia by the ... [+]

They stood at the end of the tobacco row, just beyond where the north end of the field met the woods. They stood in the shadows, perfectly still, watching only her. They reminded her of deer: thin ... [+]

Ain't no such word as "slomp" Jessey had scolded me just yesterday. But a crawdad pokin' outta the deep mud ditch alongside the river always made kind of a slomp sound to my ears. That's how you ... [+]

Melody jostled a dust-coated box into the backseat of her car. The box had remained untouched for the three years she'd been at Harvard. Why had she insisted on bringing it to law school? She'd just ... [+]

Elise finally succumbed to exhaustion just as the plane was circling Schiphol Airport. She was flying from New York to Amsterdam to visit an aging uncle. Elise had never left the U.S. before, had ... [+]

The moment he entered the bar, I knew that Mister J. wasn't your usual guest. Maybe it was the way his eyes darted around, taking the measure of everything he saw, or that half smile as he twirled ... [+]

Bag over my shoulder, I turn around once more at the threshold of the crevice: this cave was my last abode. Giving it up is hard, but I don't have time to feel sad: the tide of mist crawls at my ... [+]

I don't know who started this absurd Christmas ritual, but it's become as essential to family get-togethers as pecan pie or honey-baked ham. As soon as the food is served and we're all seated around ... [+]

It was dangling there, hanging from a nail in the wall on a little copper-plated hemp string. It shone softly with a crystalline silver reflection, almost translucent. Sometimes, when through the ... [+]

For a long time, I went to bed early, always reluctantly, grumbling, cursing, and dragging my feet. The time to go to bed was suffering, a break from life, a phase that nothing or no one would eve ... [+]

He had never seen such a thing.
Seated on the front steps of the little house with the blue shutters, Michael scratches his head, mechanically looking at the file that he already knows by ... [+]

When Eliana returned to the Phoenix Hotel Yogyakarta that night, she imagined that her grandfather's footsteps on the same floors, in the same hotel, after climbing the same mountain, would have ... [+]

Her name is Amina. The keeper of the tribe's goats, she knows all the paths and all the trails on the great plateau of white stones that stretches all the way to the horizon. She walks and hops on ... [+]

There was an old painting in my grandparents' attic. Neither beautiful nor ugly, it simply depicted an empty room with no figures, an old living room with an armchair, library, and fireplace ... [+]

The stallion pounded the ground with its hooves in a wild gallop, its horsewoman leaning over its neck. With no saddle or bit, the mount flew free, its mane in the wind.
Nighttime enveloped the ... [+]

McGregor lifted his tired eyes towards the vast horizon. In the distance, a flock of gray geese traced a large black cloud hanging low in the sky. Loneliness weighed down on him, and he felt ... [+]

"The baseboards can always be painted over."
The sentence played over and over again in Margaret's head. The real estate agent had muttered it innocently under her breath, but it stuck with he ... [+]