The tribunal was to meet in an anonymous building at an anonymous address on an anonymous street in an anonymous town not far from where Eric lived. He had never been to this town and since it had no name he had never heard of …
In a bathtub in the house at the end of Road 567 the brother is soaking in fifty liters of water. It smells of sauce made of ripe red lingonberries. The water is slightly pink. When the sun hits, the pink transforms into a color …
We made bets. Innocent ones at first, silly things a man and woman in the early throes of dating try on each other. The wagers were fought in riddles. The befuddled one had to cook the befuddler dinner. The confounded ironed the confounder’s weekend wash. …
When my mother died, I inherited fifty wild birds, and an over sexed parakeet named Tony. When I stayed in her apartment the night after the funeral, I wondered if my mother’s ghost was still in that kitchen that smelled of dead chickens. Was she …
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me. The man was not hurt when the other car hit ours. The man I had known for one week held me in the street in a …
“My secretary will give you everything you need,” said Mr. Nudel, and he pointed to the door with his cigar. That is how Birklo knew the fat man considered the conversation to be finished. He stretched his hand over the paper-covered desk, but Mr. Nudel …
Charlie was a horrible sight: his whole face was swollen like a balloon, and his eyelids looked like a pair of watery, glistening lanzones with slits in them. His nose was completely blocked, and he could barely breathe through his mouth. Tammy came into the …
“You can rinse now.” He lost count of how many times he had said this to patients, but no matter the number, he got a vicarious pleasure from the smile of relief on their faces. If only there was such a phrase for his life, …
Outside, the rain had just stopped. The suitcase at Feller’s feet had one-thousand dollars in it. No one in the bus station could tell from looking that the boxy case held his future in neatly wrapped and stacked twenty-dollar bills. He was wearing his best …
Love, lust, infidelity; a young woman coming to understand the path her life has taken.