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Frank’s least favorite part, by far, of buying a home. This strange, pervasive social contract insisting the space in his house would be used the same way as in the neighbor’s house, and the house next to that. On and On. If he let himself think about it long enough, he got depressed. He also […]

He sat on the park bench covered in dirt and ash. A light, late spring rain shower began to streak the dirt on his arms.  People stared at him as they hurriedly walked past. His body ached and his throat was raw. He was on the east side now, close to the 4, 5, and […]

Dessie came in first from recess and woke up Ms. Clemson, and she smiled and got her eyelids half-open and asked where they were at in social studies. He told her Indian removal, and she slurred through the lesson. “What can anyone tell me about the war with the Indians?” she asked the class. “Andrew […]

I. She awoke with a jolt, reaching for the red journal her therapist had encouraged her to keep. As she opened it, she reached for a pen, filling in the date and the context. The column of entries was growing longer every day—or, more specifically, each night at erratic hours. October 15, 2:14 a.m.—Same dream […]

Detective Llewellyn Fox first saw Amira by chance, when he went to Coven with Tim Small to check out Jimi Pugh, a dealer Tim had been watching. Tim thought something was going down that night, but Jimi spotted them and hid out in the men’s room, where they followed to pin him against the wall […]

Just as Jessica dropped off her last drunk of the evening, silently cursing the college debt and lack of full-time work with Channel Five that forced her to drive for Uber, her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the caller ID, but as a reporter she’d been taught to answer anyway, lest she miss a good […]

Any hopes I’d had of a peaceful morning of work that day evaporated the instant I opened my email and saw the single word in the subject line. Ireland.           My heart raced. Was this the moment I’d dreaded for so long—the unmasking of the truth? The beginning of the end of the journey I’d […]

It was late afternoon and Photine Antos Young thought it was time to call her dog back from his romp in the wet field, when she spotted the shape walking along the abandoned railroad tracks, about a hundred yards way.  She stood still, watched intently, not moving.  Her dog Tucker was bounding to the left, […]

Crimson.  That’s the color I think of when I remember that night.  It’s what I see every night when I close my eyes.  It’s not just the color of it either.  It’s also the cold, harsh sound of the word, with the hard “C” followed by the “r” that rolls off it as if to […]

Mary told me about the doll on Tuesday. I told her she was nuts. We had met for one of our lunch outs after she stuffed her six year old daughter into a leotard to learn jetes and I needed to get away from the office before I told my current client that adding ten […]