After Mom got too tired to get out of bed, that man she insisted on calling my dad couldn’t be bothered to pick up the slack.
He took money out of her purse and walked with me to the store. I made friends with a little girl while he was inside. Her face tasted like peanut butter.
When he came back out, that man had a big box and he stood there by the trash can pulling everything out except what he needed. He stuck some of those cords in his pockets and a stack of paper, too. The whole time he was mad at me for making too much noise and helping too much.
Finally, he pulled the important thing out. He had to crack it out of a white shell that sounded terrible when the pieces of it scraped together.…
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The Death
In the land of the dead, reapers usher the spirits of the dead across a river. One such reaper, Grimm, has done this for over six hundred years.
Unquenched
Grimm studied the familiar map showing where to collect his next spirit. As he approached, the spirit eyed him with disdain, and refused to pay for the ride. Grimm, momentarily taken aback, informed him that no money was needed to cross, after which the spirit happily boarded. Grimm asked the spirit his name and where he came from, but the spirit scoffed, insisting on payment for his answers. Grimm rolled his eyes beneath his hood, but tossed the spirit a gold coin, the metallic clink echoing in the stillness. The routine of ferrying souls through the underworld had left Grimm thoroughly unentertained, and the spirits’ tales were one of the few diversions left to him.…
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It was the kind of smell that could lift you off your feet. The aroma attracted half a dozen children with smiles as big as croissants. Sniffing like curious dogs, they looked at the counter and said nothing as they awaited their treats. My joy mirrored theirs as I presented the muffins.
Wow, they’re so warm! They said, and they’re so soft! How right they were. They get sweeter every day! Indeed they did. Once each child had taken one, more pastries still remained. Why did you bake thirteen? I told them I called it a baker’s dozen: two for each of them so they could share with a friend. The last one? That one was for me.
In time, they found their way back onto the cobblestones, laughing and singing, bellies full.…
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On the eastern face of the six-story Student Union Building, the architect had added a striking feature—the fire escape, instead of being clad in concrete, was enclosed in a glass shell, so that all twelve flights of delicate stairs, as though suspended in air, were visible from the courtyard below. The fire escape stairwell was thus transformed from a purely functional feature into what looked more like an Escher drawing that had somehow been straightened out. On a campus of drab buildings, the stairwell was an architectural gem.
It was precisely this aesthetic quality, this airy transparency, that caught the attention of Bernard W. Boggs, erstwhile graduate and successful entrepreneur, as he was escorted across the courtyard patio one sunny day in June. Boggs had been invited to campus for a special VIP Alumni Donor dinner at Eye in the Sky, the faculty restaurant on the sixth floor of the Student Union Building.…
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The birds are singing again. Their melody wafts through the bedroom window, and a breeze soon follows, making the curtains sway, as if dancing to the rhythm of spring.
This was always your favorite time of year.
Even if the air had a bite to it, you said it was a small price to pay to listen to that song, to feel that breeze, to breathe in those wonderful scents of the season: lilacs and magnolias and freshly-cut grass.
We weren’t religious, but you always adopted a spiritual tone this time of year, pointing to its cyclical nature: with winter comes decay, yet a few months later, life springs anew. It wasn’t heady stuff, but I loved how spring made a would-be philosopher of you, my beloved accountant, your concrete world of numbers and equations briefly melting into something mystic, something beyond words’ limitations.…
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The keypad on his door chimed that familiar tune, which he had memorized by now. The door popped open and Doctor Chin entered his cell.
“Hello Gary. How are you today?” The doctor asked.
Chin wore jeans and a button up shirt under his white doctor’s coat, and carried a tablet.
“I’m fine, Doc.” Gary said.
He hopped off his bunk and walked across the tile floor to where two chairs sat facing each other. They were soft chairs, gray in color and matched the Spartan décor of Gary’s room.
“Let’s have a seat.” The Doctor said.
Gary, wearing a one-piece baby blue jumper complied. The blue stood out against the beige color of the rest of the room. It was a very calm institutional color.…
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Marla folded the last of the towels and slipped them inside a large plastic shopping bag she kept for her trips to the laundromat. She was happy to be leaving. The building, squat, gray cinderblock, was poorly lit, with constant noise from the machines and the smell of accumulated lint and fabric softener. Inside her car, Marla sat with her eyes closed for a moment, relishing the quiet. She really did hate the place. She looked up at the sign with half its neon winking on and off. The Suds-a-teria. What kind of stupid name was that, anyway?
On her way home, Marla stopped at the Dollar Bonanza for a couple of frozen beef pot pies and a two-liter bottle of pop. She bought the store brand. …
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