The sun sets lackadaisically like molasses on hot summer nights. Sometimes there is a soft breeze that pushes the pieces of trash across the parking lot, lightly scraping the pavement. The air burns like the cigarette butts pressed into the ground, and it chokes me sometimes. I am grateful for the dripping A/C unit beneath my window and the cool-but-not-cold water that drips from my sink. My landlord still hasn’t addressed these things and probably never will, but I am content with living like this.
There is a man that lives in the apartment complex right across from me and he never closes his windows. His walls are a maddening, insidious shade of red and I can see his tall, lanky figure washing dishes. If this was a Taylor Swift music video, I would hold up a sign that says, ‘You ok?’…
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It should not be so difficult to fall madly in love
My parents met on the day of their wedding, my mother with hands covered in henna and dressed in a red sari, and my father in a white sherwani and a small, nervous smile. I came soon after, during a time where the house was still quiet and foreign, during a time where “we” didn’t exist and it was just “me and mom” and “me and dad.” I could watch my parents learn to love each other. I could observe careless hands turn gentle, harsh voices turn soft, quick glances turn long.
My brother was born five years after me. In some ways, he’s luckier than I am. He was raised by hearts swollen with love, laughter caressing his skin like kisses.…
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The door snaps open and a woman steps into the café. Cold air rushes in as she stands in the doorway. She looks about thirty. She is attractive, freckled, fresh. She wears a mid-length calfskin coat, with a black flannel scarf around her neck. She pauses for a moment. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, her eyes bright. She looks vigorous, nervy, alive.
She is my wife.
As she closes the door behind her, she tilts her head forward, her hair rolling over her shoulders. She catches it in her hands, then straightens. A barrette is in her mouth. She pulls her hair back and slips on the barrette to make a ponytail. She smiles to herself, then moves with confidence to an empty table.…
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Bill Campbell eased his eighty-year-old bones into the Victorian wingback chair just as someone began knocking on his front door. His favorite tobacco pipe rested just outside his reach on a side table. It was pledge drive month on Minnesota Public Radio–no pipe, no Beethoven, it would require an act of God’s divine mercy to hoist himself out of the chair and reverse the deviations to his morning liturgy. He patted the side pocket of his Harris Tweed, hoping to find a stowaway pipe, but it was empty.
All week construction crews had been jackhammering across the street at the state hospital. His windows rattled from the concussion and the noise jarred his serenity. According to the newspaper, the hospital planned to move the patients closest to the construction site to another wing of the facility because of the noise.…
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“And that is this, and this with thee remains” – Shakespeare, Sonnet 74.
“Harold Michaelis.” Dad answers. I can see him standing there. Probably no clothes, gaunt, perfectly groomed.
“Pop, it’s me.” I say.
“Stanley!” He calls to Mom. “Honey, it’s Stanley!”
“I have that financial rundown. We can talk about it.”
“Sure, anytime.” He says. “Are Sandra and the kids coming?”
“Not this time. We would never get around to business. Thought we could come over Sunday after church.”
“Perfect. You are on your way now?”
“Yes, I’m almost there.”
“Perfect.” He says again.
“And Pop,” I add. “Pants for everyone. Tell Freddie and Moonglow.” They being my older brother and his live-in.
“If you insist.” He says.
I hang up. I can see him going to tell Mom.…
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Something like a song or a siren interferes with your journey, and you lift your head to squint at the red numbers on the other side of the room. While you are absolutely certain that the first is a seven, you can’t tell if the second is a three or a five. You’re inclined to take your chances on the three, to grant yourself permission to fall back down into your pillow, so you can find out where in the world you were headed with the Chinese broadsword, the potato masher, and the little blue wagon, but you haul your ass out of bed, nonetheless.
After you’ve showered and dressed for walking-around-in-feels-like-winter weather, you descend the stairs into an invisible fog that smells like bacon. Your husband greets you with an extra-large, decaf coffee that he’s poured into a thermal travel cup.…
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The bus stop was barren minus this old white guy with a patchy beard and an orange beanie. He had a big bag of pretzels between his feet, and a jar of peanut butter nestled into the crook of his elbow. He was scooping hulking chunks of peanut butter onto the pretzels and inhaling them in one bite. They weren’t small pretzels. Which is to say he was taking some big bites.
“Mind if I sit?” I gestured to the opposite end of the bench. He nodded. I left enough room for a moderately obese man-spreader. As I sat I felt something squishy press against my butt cheek. I thought I might’ve shat myself, but it was just the bag of mushrooms in my back pocket.…
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