Short stories
THE STEPPE / 2020 / Literary Yard
The horizon is so wide that when I trace it with my eyes, it is a full circle. The ochres and browns of the undergrowth mix with the hazy, powdery, washed out blue of the sky. It makes me dizzy just to think of the expanse of the earth. Also, the smell is unfamiliar. It is acidulous and herby, but heavy at the same time. I look around me, and when I can’t move my head further to the side, the horse underneath me trots and allows me to take in the full view. The horse, I realize, accounts for the smell. The horse! I’ve never sat on a horse before. I panic. I try to stay mounted, but the animal must be sensing my nervousness and I lean over. I’m about to fall.
|
A shaman is the one who knows who to ask for help." |
GRIEF / 2019 / the Bookends Review
They said I’d be fine. They said I was doing all right and they added that it was only going to become easier. And that they had every reason to believe that I’d be my old, cheerful self again, and soon at that. Yes, I said, I think you’re right to believe so. They said, why don’t you take a course, we offer courses, in cooperation with the city council, one of them might interest you, and then, who knows, maybe you’ll find a new passion, or a new occupation, both are important, don’t you think? What is life without passion, they asked, and I said, yes, yes, I might do that. Just give it a try, they said, what’s the harm in trying? And I said, all right.
|
We used to fight. He would say, “It wasn’t a baby,” and I’d say, “I know it wasn’t a baby,” and he’d say, “Then what are you grieving?” and I never had a good answer to that." |
the GALLERY / 2018
She walks into the gallery: a slim girl with a ponytail, wearing flats and a black dress, and I notice her, because I know the type. Those who never go to galleries assume that people who frequent them look like that. She probably got money from her daddy and she wants to buy a nice painting to go with her nice apartment in a nice neighborhood. I notice that I’m turning into a bitter woman, and I don’t like it. That’s what happens to childless women, I’m thinking, and I don’t like the thought either.
|
She says, “I’ve never been to the opera.” I want to say, then what do you know about love, my child?” |
Rx3 / 2012 / Eunoia Review
Lily got a ride to the hospital with Jenny, her roommate, an exchange student from Holland. Jenny said she didn’t mind driving her there, as it meant a trip to the place she had planned to go to anyway. Jenny studied at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and she had read about Lily’s home town in the California Theater History Journal. She would go to Pearson Park to take photos of the statue of a long-forgotten, nineteenth century Shakespearian actress who used to live in the town. The actress, Jenny told her on the way there, had come all the way from the old continent, from some cold corner of it, to sun-drenched California, to live in a utopian, agrarian community. Lily understood the actress’s impulse to leave everything behind: the family that just reminded you that you didn’t belong, old friends who were never friendly enough…
|
She saw tiny bubbles of spittle in the corners of his otherwise dry lips. He licked them with effort. Then he said slowly, 'I never loved you'." |
Thanksgiving / 2012 / The Cynic
Millie Dupcek was the kind of girl any man would like to take home to introduce to his parents, and Richard Seams started thinking about taking her home not long after they met. He imagined she would be courteous and shy, just as she was with his friends, and he also imagined her reaction to the inevitable question about grandchildren that he was sure his mother would ask, like she had last time. "Where's my grandchildren?" she said in a voice a bit too loud, spilling some of her martini as she swirled the glass, not looking at it, trying to look the girl directly in the eye, which was difficult, considering it was her fourth drink.
|
"She was a vegetarian, not a sexual predator"
|