The Girl’s Piano
The girl, fourteen, sat at the piano in her pajamas. The wind outside shook the screens in the windows and the snow whirled around and forced its way into other spaces alongside the glass. She flicked on the light above …
Category: Fiction
Narratology
The story’s been going around forever, but it always peaks after prelims, and there are whispers in the bookstores and signs on the quad, and the grad students discourse in the bars along Dubuque Street, and the main character is …
The Summer with No Mosquitoes
I’m about to make a left turn into the YMCA on Spears Road. The traffic light turns red. I hate this traffic light. It must be programmed to turn red whenever I’m here. The parking lot of the Y is …
Prologue to Green River
The village of Green River is inhabited by two groups, insiders and outsiders. The insiders move. No matter which direction they travel, it is always away from reflection, away from thought. As a result, they live sane lives. They are …
Exit…Stage Left
My Uncle Mark was the black sheep on my Mom’s side. He moved to Windsor during Vietnam, saying, “Good luck with that bullshit war – I wanna live.” When he got back he hustled the pool sharks at some east …
Sculptural and Spatial Practices
I come from flyover country. That’s what people here call it. My grandparents slaughtered pigs. Strung porkers and sucklings up by the feet to bleed out, collected the blood in mason jars that I carried from slaughter shed to my …
Sitting Guard
Some days are better than others, some days are worse than others, some days just are. This was going to be one of those better days, I hoped. Did I resent my mother’s remarrying? It was Dr. Runner who …
