I am seventeen. I am in Budapest, and it is the Communist era. At the airport, there were Russian soldiers with Kalashnikovs patrolling the runways. Only one airline flew to Budapest, the national airline Malév. There were few passengers. I stopped at passport control and showed my American passport. It contains a photograph of me […]
I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime Out of SPACE—out of TIME. Edgar Allan Poe, “Dream–Land” The Poet’s Tale The dreamer, born bleak, invents an existence elsewhere. He tosses in his sleep, his hair tangled. His hands grasp at nothing, and his […]
Aworo, Lord of Horses, god of the Western plains, walked into the marketplace in Kalub in the third hour of the morning. It was early summer, and at this hour the sun was warm and comfortable. Pens of livestock and slaves, rickety stalls, rows of fish staring blankly, baskets of fruit, orange and red and […]
Meg should have known. This was what came of trying to be nice. “It’s a new job, a new crowd,” her mother had declared, far too cheerfully. “Be sociable this time around. Make friends. Say yes to possibilities.” Against her better judgement, Meg had worn the daffodil yellow shirt; Meg had said “yes” to drinks […]
Three words, allegedly, written in Sharpie on his bathroom mirror: CREMATION, NO FUNERAL. “Shortest suicide note ever,” said a girl standing beside me at the river’s edge, staring into the flames. “That’s so Cyd.” The shortest suicide note is none at all, I thought, and that was so Cyd, so much so that it made […]
(Content Note for descriptions of sexual violence.) Your sister has too–large hands and too many teeth. Not in a sense that her gums are crowded or her fingers are long and she might have a career as a concert pianist. No, her hands are massive, thick–boned, tipped in wickedly sharp claws that shine like pearls. […]
Three lies: One: Silence is permission; quiescence, acceptance; yes is yes means always yes. Two: This is the way of gods and beasts, a tradition of power. The men take, the woman is taken, her boundaries malleable, her desire negligible. This is cultural, universal, axiomatic fact. Mythology is unkind, deification teeth–marked by sacrifice. If there […]
Democracy was dead to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. The election proclaimed it and the electoral college confirmed it and Trump himself signed off on the note, vaguely annoyed that Clinton had somehow still gotten 2.9 million votes more than he had. Well, they were from California. Everyone knew California didn’t […]
“Yeah, that’s some clog,” the plumber said. She pulled the metal–and–rubber snake out of the bathroom sink. Marisella wrinkled her nose at the gunk sticking to it. Whatever it had caught on in her drain had warped the metal and torn away bits of the rubber. Marisella asked, “Can you fix it?” and, more softly, […]
An Eddie LaCrosse story “Would you look at that,” the queen said softly. “A white hart.” I followed her gaze. Far across the clearing, at the edge of the thick forest, an immense snow–white stag stood stock–still, as if posing for a painter. Only its ears twitched, as if it heard the queen’s faint voice. […]