Fiction

A black and white step-wedge image of Algonquin Park
Two Songs

I once mistook loving a story for loving a person.

A red-headed woman and a black-haired woman embracing
Two Wives

At night she would try to dig her way out, and I would pull my stitches tighter, snipping off the tips of her fingers. 

a detail from a sliced orange
Her Ex Writes a Novel

Fiction is a more subtle and sophisticated revenge porn.

A girl and a drone stare off at night in the jungle
Post-Conflict Combatant

They were no longer comrades, but post-conflict combatants. The war is over, he said, a phrase he would keep repeating throughout the day without emotion. It’s over.

A close up, black and white image of a woman's eye
Jamie's Last Day of Term

Today I heard five Shakespearean insults walking along the corridor, and if I hear one more, it will be a good day, an even day.

a person in a hazmat suit stands in front of the sun looking down to the vantage point.
Agassiz

On this morning, at this place, the prevailing wind is from the west. Given the location of the site, the air we breathe right now will reach the city in an hour or two. When it arrives in the city it will seem like a mystery, an affliction.

detail of an air-conditioned on a yellow wall.
Breaking and Entering

Random was what life did best, Bea thought. It conferred cancer on the virtuous, drunk drivers on the unsuspecting, it matched noble wives to unfinished men, wickedness to wealth, weakness to power.

different panes of glass
The Policy Says

The manager takes me into the back room to explain the company ethos and the role. Each neighborhood store should feel like just that, a neighborhood store, she says, reading from the brochure.

A man and a woman stand together against a building while the woman smokes. It is nighttime. Against the reflection of the building, the man's reflection appears as his dead wife's ghost.
A Haunting for Beck

Beck didn’t believe in an afterlife, but he was starting to think that this was what people meant by ghosts. There was something there, he craned his mind toward it: something about ghosts. 

A neon sign shaped like a pink flamingo.
Shorthorns / Oxblood Gator Skin Seats

You know, Lady, I ain’t trying to start nothing, but a bunch of people’s saying you’re the best thing breathing.