A thread of sky breaks through the trees. Meriwether Lewis, Captain of the Corps of Discovery Expedition, strides out of the shadow and into the light. Raising his free hand, he shades his eyes and overlooks a great grassy plain. The Captain can see the sapphire Missouri River snaking toward the snowclad southern mountains.
He turns his attention to vast flocks of young geese. The birds have become completely feathered in all areas except for one crucial spot.
Their wings still lack the feathers needed for flight.
Descending the hill, Captain Lewis plans a hike to the bend in the Missouri that he had spotted from above. Rounding a boulder, there are at least one thousand buffalo grazing and drinking on the river.
Captain Lewis stands his 1792 Contract Short Rifle upright on the western wheatgrass.…
My life changed with a boring car ride. “Dad, the film isn’t ready,” I said from the backseat. “Want me to put it together?”
Three more hours of driving separated us and Springfield, Missouri, and I wanted to watch film of the other teams in the Midwest Showcase tournament at Hammons Field, not YouTube videos of big leaguers breaking down swings and pitching mechanics. Been there, done that.
“Nah,” my dad, and coach, replied. “No need for you to spend your time on that, I’ll do it when we get to the hotel. You could watch some pitching mechanics videos.”
I frowned at the back of his shaved head and looked out the window. Dad had uploaded video clips to the Dreamz Teamz app, and technically, me and my teammates could watch them.…
G. R. was dreaming if you could call it that. It was more of a nightmare. He knew he was a caterpillar. He could get around, but the immediate stages before left a lot to be desired. In his dream he was tied up by some bratty kid in a weird contraption slowly turning over and over: one side he’s up: a tiny egg stuck on some shitty leaf and then it flipped and he’s a pupa stuck inside his own shell. Talk about the mother of nightmares. And he’s a little runt to top it off. Oh, I’ll get even. Just wait until I wake up and come out of my cocoon. Tsetse flies will be considered chump change.
Jui’s paternal aunt, Bomma, had been a hoarder for as long as Jui could remember. The dull maroon single-door LG refrigerator would sag and droop under the weight of expired ketchup bottles, moldy slices of Amul cheese and steel tiffin boxes filled with the month’s leftovers. Bomma was not someone who threw or gave away anything. Boxes of sweets offered for Ma Kali’s puja would be relegated to the bottom shelf and swiftly forgotten as she was insanely diabetic. Their housemaid Asma’s special mutton biriyani would ferment for days on end after she had had one bite and found the meat too hard to chew. Stray mayonnaise and chilli sauce sachets would accumulate by the dozen on the rickety brackets of the fridge door. Every once in a while Asma would attempt to perform a cursory clean-up and be rewarded with choice words for her trouble.…
The sun shines hard on the thick blades of crabgrass whose roots carve deep into the hard dog-pissed soil while the seven year cicadas play high, heavenly strings in search of a dying mate. In the speckled shade of a young cedar elm a small day old bird has fallen from its nest and is crying. The freshly mowed grass is crying too; one million blades cropped to the shoulder on one fifth of an acre and then a brown stained fence between another stiff fifth and they are all drowned out easily by the low fierce whir of dark green ac units cooling homes spaced as evenly apart. Every home with the same brown fence, every home with the same grey driveway, every home with the same blue sky, every home with the same small elm planted, and it will be twenty-five years and three new owners before children swing from the branches.…
One Sunday morning in May, my mother telephoned and asked me to attend Mass with her. I was busy packing my books and deciding which ones to leave for my nephew Sam and his sisters, and I had fourteen papers on Theme in The Great Gatsby to read and mark by the end of the day. I didn’t want to go to church. But the Mass was being said in memory of Papa Vincent, my grandfather, dead these twenty years, and members of his family would be expected to bear the gifts—the little carafes of water and wine and the loot from the collections—to the altar during the Offertory Procession. My father, the sweetest soul I knew, was feeling under the weather, and my brother, a believer, was out of town.…
I sit on the rough wooden floor, dirt and pine needles sticking to my yellow smock as the firelight dwindles. I’m supposed to be adding wood, feeding it like Mr. John does, but the ache in my body stalls my progress. The single-room cabin is cluttered with cans, rusty animal traps and furs. Centering the room is a small wooden table that is heaped with dirty tin plates and Mr. John’s carving projects.
My rear is sticky and wet; I should clean up the blood. I should wash the dishes. Mr. John would tell me there’s no use sitting around, there’s work to be done and I’ve been abed too long. I have been watching the crack of light beneath the door – the only window to the outside we have.…
