Prose
Lessons
The soup smell, the weeds, the dim heat. He lived there with his sickly mother, who was chronically bed-ridden. Sometimes I doubted whether she was real or not; she never made a sound, never emerged. Supposedly she was dying.
Skins
I perch myself on the steel stool beside the worktable—needles, pliers, penknife, and thread spools all laid in a row on its chrome surface. When I press my boot on the foot pedal, the conveyor belt cranks and whirrs, and the morning’s first load of assorted critters rumbles toward me. I start in on a ratty-looking jackrabbit, hoping to keep a steady pace and clock out a little early. It’s Taco Tuesday, and the girls are expecting chimichanga kids meals for dinner.
A Sound Heard By Heaven
Thomas didn't answer. He had, in fact, booked the trip after his sister found him curled up in the tub at his new apartment, shivering under a shower that had run cold. She called her husband, a self-styled amateur psychologist with a graduate degree in botany, and the two of them staged an intervention.
The Short and the Long of It
He’s forty-four. I think forty-fuckable. I check his height and it occurs to me that I’ve finally grown. Or maybe I’m just getting it now, the whole life thing. What’s certain is at thirty-sexy I’m getting on. I want someone to go home to. It’s why I’ve been craving an opportunity to scold my parents for jinxing me by exiting in a way that will never be partner-hooking-friendly.
Full Moon in Chekika
A night of no-kill python hunting in the Everglades with Tom Rahill, founder of the Swamp Apes—a volunteer group using wilderness therapy to aid military veterans dealing with PTSD.
The Rail to Sacile
As the clacking train slows to a stop, the grating door of the fourth car opens to reveal the tightly packed innards where people of all colors sit in coveted seats or else stand in the thin passage so those disembarking are forced to brusquely push through. At the sound of the steel door, the woman flicks open her eyes, fluttering her lids, then darting her irises this way and that before settling them on me.
Buzzen’s Fire
Buzzen told me that he knocked the chimney down with a sledge-hammer two years ago when a dead raccoon got caught between the bricks. He said that raccoons still haunt the area, rampant amidst trash and debris. “I hate to shoot em,” he said, “If I don’t shoot em’ the damn things eat my cereal.”
Missing Person
One day, I arrived early, but my time card wasn’t there. My time card: proof I existed in physical time and space. If there was no way to punch in, was I even really there? Who could I turn to with my I.D. photo blank?
Matar
Name the goat. This is the most valuable information given by the inmates. If you name it, you cannot eat it. You will care for it. You will see it has a soul. The goat will become like your child. And then they will set you free.