People no longer smell sulfur when they see me. A papaya vendor at Hangman’s Market takes a sudden interest in the depths of a coin purse. A bank clerk’s posture stiffens with dignity and fear. A young man seizes me up and dismisses me as a possible competitor for any female he would seek to bed.
As a result, in my dotage, I’ve permitted myself to become a man of habit. Hangman’s Market each weekday at 11, where I load my string bag like all the market-goers–papaya, yams, some dried sausage. A daily glass of tafia before lunch at Don Pedro’s by the sea. A crossword puzzle I make no real effort to complete. The siesta afterward, while my housekeeper cooks my evening meal without supervision, since she’s the only person who can be trusted, and even then, I make her taste dinner first.…
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The trees with branches thick and coarse, barely move when children swing from them.
Those trees have strong, deep roots that won’t let a child fall.
Such trees have branches that can hold the weight of an argument over who did the dishes last.
Such trees can stand to have the very bark torn from their bodies over screams of ‘I hate you’ and ‘just leave me alone.’ Such trees know how to bounce back and start a fresh the next day.
Trees like that, solid and unmoving, can handle weather changes—cold stares and burning tension.
Trees with roots that cannot be ripped from the ground are able to handle the heat of a good old fiery career change.
But there are trees that haven’t grown to be so resilient.…
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By now my mother and I do not speak. Nonetheless, she is a presence hovering everywhere I go. She has smelled the same for as long as I remember. When I had outgrown the powdery smell of babies she too stopped smelling like talcum. Now she smells like bubblegum as if littering the air with a confetti of bubblegum wrap long after it has lost its sweetness in her mouth. I assess that smell in the room to confirm she has left or if she has merely retreated to a far corner where I won’t hear the catching of her breath or the restless shuffle of her feet.
And so the smell slowly fades away…
Comforted by this finding, I shift in my seat and lower myself until I am lying comfortably.…
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“He’s very weak, Rory,” Aunt Tricia says, quietly, through the phone.
What medical training Rory has, considering physiotherapy never prepares you for end-of-life care, kicks in. “How much longer do you think?”
“The doctors say a year at most, with treatment.”
“And he’s—doing the treatment?”
“No.” Aunt Tricia clears her throat. Her voice is surprisingly strong, just a bit wobbly on certain syllables. “No, he doesn’t think that will do any good. He’s been through so much of it already. He’s done with that.”
What must this be doing to her? Her husband, no longer her husband and yet still—technically they’ve remained married since he went to prison, even though she knows the truth and Rory knows she knows—miles away from her in a strange building, strange hospital, whom she’s only seen on visits, now suddenly home with her, wasting away before her, with her every moment.…
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Normally, they would have been up by 7:30—they got up when the dog did—but their dog had had a big day yesterday, an extra walk up and down the hilly streets of Baltimore and a longer than usual game of tennis ball in the backyard, and was still asleep. So the problem wasn’t that it was too early when they heard a woman’s voice calling them from their living room at 8:45; the problem was that a woman’s voice was calling them from their living room.
“Jerry? Sandra? You there?”
It was Elena from across the street, they quickly realized. They knew it was Elena because she always called Sandra SAHN-dra; she’d done it from the day they moved in ten years ago. They didn’t know if it was an affectation or if she’d just heard it wrong or if she had some kind of quirky speech impediment, although she didn’t call her daughter Mary MAH-ry, and when she had her sewer line replaced, she didn’t talk about how cute the BAHK-hoe operator was.…
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My mother washed the outside of the pomegranate before she opened it.
Time felt still in the mornings when I sat by her as an audience across the small, round kitchen table. I watched her meticulously pick each and every tiny red seed pod from the white flesh with her thin fingers. She took the pomegranates and mixed them in the Greek yoghurt I had watched her pull off the shelf at the supermarket the day before. As she scooped them out, one of them fell and bounced off my shoe, then landed on the floor. I brought my foot up to the chair and wiped the juice off, however it left behind a small red stain.
We sat and ate in silence. 15 minutes later, I had to leave for school.…
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We funneled independently through the horde of mouth-breathers, school bell releasing us from monotonous lessons we’d mastered before the classes even began. Like a well-tuned machine we threaded expediently and stepped lightly, dodging shoulder throwing jocks and snickering goths and jazz handing theater kids. Our destination awaited us, a physical and mental safe haven: Mr. Pruitt’s classroom. Chess club.
We arrived within seconds of each other, chemistry posters on the wall welcoming us and promising a mental workout. After the day we’d all had, like every other day in public school, it was a relief. Immediately we got to work setting up the game. Kevin tossed three vinyl chessboards on the tables, unrolling them and checking for wrinkles. Ian laid out the clocks. David dropped bags of white and black pieces on each board.…
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