We’re hand in hand in the dusk on a long stretch of drying asphalt. Traffic lights do their thing unobserved by a single individual. Although its midsummer, dark blue clouds block out much of the sun. The horizon is a strange and brooding pastel. It barely stopped raining and we’re so happy together. When the rain resumes we just take our shirts off. The light present is chimerical and seems to change position in the sky every building we pass. It could be any day, any decade. No cars pass us by during our ten miles or so stroll, no airplanes fly overhead. The one she arrived on is having its wings de-iced somewhere beyond the horizon in another world, consuming a new batch of explorers.…
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I didn’t know how long I’d been running but what I did know is that I was finally tired. My tennis shoes had holes from the pressure of slamming down the ball of my right foot – a nasty habit my mom used to warn me about. I took them both off, left and right, sat on the curb and thanked my right foot for always trying the hardest.
“Your balance is off – you’ll never run as fast as you want to if you keep abusing your feet like this.” I could hear her say it as if she were right next to me.
This bothered me. I wasn’t abusing my right foot, I was testing its limits. I was testing my limits. And we were fine standing on our own and didn’t mind a challenge.…
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“Oooooo, Dona!” Mrs. G calls as she hurries along the path to our hut from the central plaza.
“Oooooo, Dona!” she cries again, announcing herself as she approaches our door on the perimeter of the village. Bowed legs wobble beneath a protruding belly from her diet of starchy manioc tubers. The wife of a village elder, a lifetime of brutal heat and sun has browned her wrinkled face making it hard to guess her age. She calls me “Dona” in Portuguese as a term of respect, meaning “Madam”.
We’re in the tropical forest south of the Amazon River in central Brazil. My husband Bem and I are living among the indigenous Bororo people, doing anthropological research. We finish our cold breakfast of leftover rice from yesterday’s dinner just as Mrs.…
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His phone got up to six missed calls right before it died. All from Mom and none from Paul.
The whole time he had been sitting at McDonald’s dipping fries in his McFlurry it could have been charging. He didn’t want to wait now. He didn’t think he needed to. He just had to get back on the highway and drive in an hour-long straight line and then he’d see his brother. If he got a little lost it would be a relief.
But he didn’t get lost. He put his new shoe against the gas pedal of his old car, Paul’s old car, and barely moved it until the corn turned to trees. He should have taken it slower. The empty roads were just so tempting.…
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The strained ticking of a broken clock was the single noise in Oscar Brum’s living room, but was enough to clasp him from his staccato sleep. His spindly body shook convulsively as a nervous wave shot from feet to torso and sprung him upwards. He immediately made note of his latest night terror: ‘suffocation’. His dreams were becoming progressively violent, all ending with painful, contorted deaths. They had, for a while, been morbid, but it was a gloom he’d basked in. As the unfortunate butcheries had involved others, he found no reason for concern. Now that his visions had taken an unwelcome personal turn, he sought a confidant but couldn’t trust his neighbours. They were the epitome of paranoia, walking like maniacal hens, darting their gaze nervously from sky to ground, unable to settle on either. …
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It is too hot for a sweater, but I can’t reach the clasp on the back of my dress to close it; so fuck it, I’m wearing a sweater. I try to tell myself that drinking more gin and tonics will keep me cool and not make me look like a lush at a baby shower. I shuffle in my seat and sip my drink.
I know four people here, plus the dog. I feel guilty drinking, even though I am successfully convincing myself these G and T’s are keeping me cool when in reality I am actually drenched in sweat, with clammy hands.
There is a tap on my shoulder and a voice yelling in my ear, “Dance with me! Dance with me!” Lia, my niece – who is six – demands.…
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The fog-smothered dusk settling over Cretan Lake, Minnesota might have caused most sensible people to be more aware of their surroundings. Car exhaust fumes and damp garbage wreaths wrapped around pedestrians as they maneuvered around the gritty streets sprinkled with brown puddles and the occasional crushed Styrofoam cup or candy wrapper. A woman’s heels echoed in the distance with a clicking sound. Raindrops dripped steadily from gutters with a slow-ticking-clock rhythm.
A short, coarse fellow of forty-six, Mr. Smith had finished meandering about the Minnesota town, having already made his usual stops at the playground, City Park, and the school. His attempts for the day were futile considering the rain had poured down in sheets and no one dared brave it.
Now he stumbled up the slippery concrete steps to his third floor Saddle Square apartment, his egregiously large leather bag thudding softly against the back of his right thigh as he climbed each step.…
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