A pigeon wing brushing against the window screen, I think, as I’m seated at my desk, listening to the scratching sound. Something I can easily ignore even as it persists. The sound does not drown out yelps from my daughter …
Fiction
Pulse, My Electric Heart
Sometimes, they speak of little ones. They do it with words and awkward silences, clasped hands, smiles and twitches, sidelong glances and mating calls: “Hey, babe. I’m winded, because you just took my breath away.” I stoop to pick up …
Father Fox
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said, before he told me the story.
My father’s tales starred cheats, thieves, and priests, and he figured at thirteen I was old enough to hear one of his favorites. It began like this: once he …
Bond
As with any illegal drug, Bond came to me through a friend, my officemate at the graphic design firm where I produced diagrams for mathematics textbooks. Larry was a compact, cherub-faced man with an inappropriate mane of long, thinning blond …
Boxes
No. 1—Secretary
Box type: cigar, lined in Spanish cedar with brass hinges, glass top lid—13”L x 10”W x 6.5”H. Sounds fancy for a diorama and it is, but I had it in my basement, a remnant from an old boyfriend, …
One-Legged Crow
When I was a child, my mother worried that I would eventually abandon her for the company of friends. But when I still had not made a friend by the end of the second grade, she worried about my social …
There Is an Angel Inside Me I’m Constantly Shocking
A carer’s life is boring. Working day in and day out for months, years. Watching over their employers like collies, ever hopeful to spring into action at the first sign of trouble, to be useful, to be heroic. Only this …
Starbaby Blooms a Tuber Rose (excerpt)
When the pops walked into my room, he saw the One-Who-Got-Away’s underthings spread across the floor with jars of moths on top of each one, and that’s why we had our little accident. I didn’t think he was coming home …
Old Houses
Congratulations to Allison Alsup, whose story “Old Houses” won an O. Henry Prize! This story was originally published in issue 38.1 of the New Orleans Review.
The O. Henry Awards have been awarded for nearly one hundred years, honoring …
Bundle
My mother removed my legs and wrapped them in cheesecloth—no lint—before putting them in the top drawer of the bureau beside my crib. “Tell me the story again,” I displayed on the message screen embedded in my chest.
“We had …
