The girl's tears are soakers. They never flow enough to nourish me but that is not part of our bargain. She confides the secrets no one else can learn. I help her as much as one can by listening ... [+]
The girl's tears are soakers. They never flow enough to nourish me but that is not part of our bargain. She confides the secrets no one else can learn. I help her as much as one can by listening ... [+]
When you are a competent old man who lives alone, you can eat what you want for breakfast. This morning I had noodles, or rather noodle soup, a favorite of mine for colder weather. Broth with ... [+]
When you first open your eyes, all you can see is the brightness. You don’t know what it is, but you feel your stubby fingers reach for that light. Pale clouds of cream dot your vision as you ... [+]
Her shoes glare at me as I wait on the couch for him to pour the wine. Though she is absent her shoes fill the room with her presence. Jay and Marina’s apartment is quiet, and lushly decorated with ... [+]
I live in a train. I have food, warmth, a place to sleep.
I feel certain that I am its sole occupant, for if there were anyone else on it I would know by now, as I have lived in this train my
... [+]
It’s a Mexican thing. You have to be Mexican to understand the mixture of sadness, joy and resignation we associate with death. We don’t want to die, but we respect our relatives who have gone ... [+]
Sonny Ramsingh was an only child born of Indian parents who came from India as indentured labourers. They worked in the canefields of a small and picturesque Caribbean island until they gained thei ... [+]
Dora Terra-Mangle was a lion tamer in Leeds from 1947 until May 15th, 1960. That was the day of the catastrophe when Dora, at home in her family caravan near the big top, dropped her thick green ... [+]
For days at a time, he is underwater, although how many he can never be sure, floating just below where the sun or the moon or the crisscrossing searchlights of boats can penetrate and filter through ... [+]
It had been nearly fourteen years, but there you were on my morning commute. On your way to work like nothing had happened. Both of us on our ways to work as if nothing had happened.
You looked
... [+]
I reached for the control strip and tapped the edit icon. Immediately, the scene changed to a woodland, dark fir trees casting long shadows beneath a heavy winter sky. For background effect, I added ... [+]
When I get home from Sunday Service, I strip my pressed white shirt in the living room. I step out of my slacks. Peel off the tight black socks. I fumble naked for my dive skin, the black and blue ... [+]
Juniper’s pudgy limbs army crawled through the soggy mulch and rolled under the Palmerton playground’s dinky bridge to join Nellie, who was too busy sucking out all the jelly from her Uncrustable ... [+]
She opened the inside door cautiously. The old man stood on the stoop, in the unseasonable warmth and clamor of the November afternoon. Lean and unbent, he looked like an ancient villager in a ... [+]
I am a balloon. I am born without anything inside-Ideas, opinions, choice. As years progress I am inflated with more. I soar the more I am filled with knowledge. Eventually I am off the ground. I am ... [+]