Desmond pulled the fabric close over his nose. The sunlight streamed in through the window, lighting the tiny dust particles that floated around him, making the sterile living room seem like an enchanted garden. Holding the fabric tight, he reached out and touched the glass window pane with his extended index finger. It felt smooth, cool. When two women walked into his view, he gasped, ducking quickly below the windowsill.
“Desmond!” his mother called from somewhere behind him. Sullenly, Desmond pulled at the fabric of the curtains until the window was completely covered. The living room lost its magic.
“Desmond, you silly boy,” mother said, approaching him. “Peeking out at our neighbors again?” Desmond hung his head.
“No, mama,” he whispered bashfully, a smile tugging at his lips.…
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Krish Dhar scrunched into his window seat on the cramped Air Canada jet. His business required travel from Southern California to Phoenix eight times a year. The return flight took roughly seventy-five minutes. Easy most trips. A good chance to stare into space and mull over things.
Krish watched attractive women board the plane and manage the slim passageway. A brief juncture of hope, of possibility. For whatever reason, they were never ticketed next to him. No, he consistently endured giant, long-legged fellows as neighbors, or sweaty, glandular men who needed the auxiliary seat belt strap to secure them from careening about the cabin. If a woman ever sat next to Krish, it was a besieged mother wrestling with a mewling infant who smelled of soiled diapers and Gerber’s baby food.…
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It was universally acknowledged, amongst their friends and family, that Sophia and Drew were one of the world’s more elusive creatures; a perfectly happy couple.
Married for three years, second marriages both, they had skipped past the brutal stages of life. It wasn’t that they hadn’t done the hard yards, Sophia was careful to explain to those interested, it was that they hadn’t had to do them together. Drew had never borne witness to the appalling moment when Sophia had slapped the beetroot red face of her squalling newborn. Sophia had never been abandoned to cope with three children under three by a younger Drew off on a dirtbike weekend. It was by tacit agreement that they shared these snippets of their former lives; God knows the guilt I feel, but I was pushed to the limit, and Jeez I was selfish, I can see that now, but only so they could hold them up as mirrors to the new, untarnished people they now were to each other.…
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I’ve never told anybody about those kids before. Probably because if they asked questions I might break down and blab the whole story and that would just start trouble, knowing my family. Isn’t it weird how people think they know their own mother when she’s carried this secret for over seventy years?
My daughter-in-law spends time with me now and then when my son, Georgie, brings her down from Pennsylvania where their house is. He runs a business here in New Jersey and stays with me during the week while she’s usually alone at home in the mountains with woods all around and a lake in front. They have bears and coyotes and fisher-cats and all kinds of critters there, but she says she isn’t scared when Georgie is gone.…
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You notice little things about them first, like who receives notices from collection agencies, who still subscribes to magazines, who gets wedding invitations every month or two. You can tell a wedding invitation from a regular letter because people have gotten so fussy about weddings that everything from the stationary to the actual event is over the top. The envelopes are a thick cardstock, always, and usually have a sheen to them. Plus, there’s the calligraphy. Always calligraphy.
You drop the square, iridescent, hand-lettered invitations into the mailbox of a couple you assume to be young and well-liked. You rarely ever see them, but you’ve formed a pretty good idea about what they’re like based on the catalogs they receive: J. Crew, Restoration Hardware, and L.L.…
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Our house is not big. I used to like the closeness of it all. Each day I leave to walk the quiet streets of our neighborhood. Sirens are the most common sound these days. I haven’t been keeping count but I easily hear them twice as often as before. Now is the time of year when I can usually hear kids squealing from many yards and have to remind myself that this is the noise children make when they play but also when they’re in trouble. It always makes me uneasy. I think I prefer that unease to this particular quiet. Sometimes I see people and dogs stare at me from their windows. I am not breaking the rules. I don’t have a dog, one of the legitimate reasons people have to leave their houses; a necessity as defined by the city.…
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Her hair was falling out. She ran her fingers through its lengths, a fistful coming out and dropping to the hungry sink below, the rushing water of the faucet sweeping it off to its watery death. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Fast Forward
Kaida looked up into the sterile light fixture above her. A bee hummed and darted across the room to the window. Kaida was allergic to bees. She hoped to God it wouldn’t come near her. The fan in the corner circled toward her, blowing cool air her way. Her hair fluttered, sending loose strands floating through the air, eventually statically magnetizing themselves to whatever unfortunate item of clothing had enough clingy, dry, static electricity running through it to be forever practically inseparable. …
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