Today’s lunch break couldn’t come fast enough. Sheila unclipped the hand radio from her belt, placed it in the charging station and stepped out of the admin office. She swiped her punch card at the row of timeclocks across from the vending machines. Sheila returned the punch card into the plastic sleeve of the lanyard draped over her white silk button-up shirt. Bolted against the employee hallway wall, were six of the two-dozen time clocks in the Paradise Capital Hotel which had five-hundred and fifty-six employees. She removed her lanyard and tucked it into the jacket pocket of her Navy-blue pantsuit. The casino floor was slow as usual. Paradise Capital was a mid-size casino in Miami, Florida. The pit was nearly empty. Paradise Capital attracted a crowd of Floridians, snowbirds and elderly tourists who preferred digital slot machines over blackjack, craps, and roulette tables.…
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Today we elected Cameron. He’s sixteen. It wasn’t legal but a few months ago Congress got together and changed the laws so that he could run for office. And it was a landslide. He refused to do any of the debates. He’d just drop another video on his channel that’d get tens of millions of likes. The networks needed the viewing numbers so badly that they would just play his videos when the other candidates were finished speaking. Even the other candidates liked it. The conservative (what was his name?) was caught on a hot mic, and as they watched Cameron crush a dance to “Makeba” by Jain, he said that Cameron’s moves were “fresh as shit”.
On election night, Steve Kornacki didn’t even bother clicking on any of the states on his touchpad map.…
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She had been scrubbing for hours, the skin on her hands raw and red from pushing the brush back and forth. The stain however, wasn’t going anywhere. Elizabeth had no idea where it had come from, she prided herself on keeping a clean house and was quick to remove anything deemed ‘dirty’. Spillages were cleaned before they could touch the surface they hurtled towards, and spiders actively stayed away from the house – not wanting to end up as eight legs twitching on a tissue. Although she didn’t have many visitors, she maintained that it was always good to be prepared, not wanting to be caught short with an unclean or messy house.
Which is why Elizabeth had been horrified to find the small black penny-sized spot on her red kitchen floor tiles that morning.…
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He put his hand over mine and it looked so old. “No one will even want them,” I said,
“They’re dated”. He said that wasn’t the point and walked over to the white dresser by your bed.
“Let’s start with her shirts,” he said, and I said that your shirts were in the tall dresser by the window. He put a shaky hand on your bed for support, and I could hear his knees creak as he stood. The last time we were in your room together he could have carried your dresser over his shoulder.
“The top drawer?” He asked.
“No,” I said, “the third down.”
He opened the drawer and pulled out a neat pile of tiny shirts that were so colorful. When he took the shirts out of your drawer, the room changed.…
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When you cook for me, it is a full-bodied affair. The clang of the wok on your stovetop, countertop, worktop. Always smashing, pounding, your forearms straining as you design a meal and display the side dishes on the table: blanched vegetables in an avalanche of fresh chilli oil, small bowls of jewelled pickles, meat braised soft and fragrant. The shallow bowls are like cupped hands, and you always treat them with dignity as you push them closer, place choice pieces on my bowl of rice like an offering and I feel obligated to do more than smile in return. I want to bend over your feet and show you devotion.
Yet, as I set the table for your arrival, part of me is convinced inviting you to my flat for dinner exceeds the dimensions of our relationship.…
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What is the memory of some imagined loveliness? Flowers, certainly – and roses most assuredly – are lovely.
The chickadees are slowly walking, like tiny chicken hens, strutting, dancing through the blossoming dandelions … These calm chickadees are quite lovely. And, I would say, that my sister Evangeline, in her way, was lovely.
My sister Evangeline – that was her formal name – was a tall thin girl, all of 13 and a half years. No degree of happiness came to her face, because even at 13 Evangeline was a determined and accomplished girl. Rarely, when a smile would light her face, I knew what loveliness was; I could see that Mom was proud of Evy, not just because she was good at grooming the hogs for 4H, or her sewing, or her horse hiding abilities – no I think Mom loved her because she was a girl, soon to be a woman, and Mom, you could tell was proud of all 5 of her girls, and women in general; I think Mom felt that women got the short shrift of things, the short end of the stick. …
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The scorching tar, his raw kneecaps, the sun beating down on the exposed skin of his arms and legs and the nape of his neck; these are the sensations he will remember years later. Then he will spin yarns about boyhood summers spent in Appalachia, deep in the hill country of West Virginia. Now he is just focused on not pitching ass-over-teakettle off the eaves of this house. It’s hot up on this halfway shingled roof, and the biting flies and midges offer no reprieve to lofty souls such as Charlie Moore’s. Not that Charlie feels particularly lofty at present, sweating his balls off under the sweltering southern sun. He feels sticky and shaky and sour.
Mopping sweat and a crust of salt from his sun-tanned brow, he scans the hills and valleys that will hereafter become etched in the folds of his cerebral cortex.…
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