Ghost Parachute

The wallpaper had a trellis pattern of the wallpaper was meant to evoke outside, tea on a Sunday, brunch with witty friends. The flowers – bountiful peonies pregnant in their beauty. She does not know these things intimately and so thinks they are mocking her. Lush green ivy painted in vertical lines, floor to ceiling. […]

I can’t see his face, but the man’s antlers cast jagged shadows on the cold concrete while we wait for the train. I’m taking the train from Denver to Glenwood Springs as a kind of treat, a gift of leisure I don’t know that I’ve earned. I live with my father and he is slowly […]

Three times he says it: everybody down, everybody down, everybody down. He has a gun in one hand, and a gun in the other. We do what we are told. Slide from our seats and bow, face to the linoleum as if we are praying. Some of us are. I noticed him outside, on my […]

Bottles of Bud light skid around the backseat as Donna’s puppy yaps at her. Donna drives over the 18 inches of dead grass separating the little parking lot from Route 17. She scoops up the pup and carries him. Before ringing the bell, she puts on her mask. She has doubts about COVID, but she […]

On Miss Montgomery’s polished oak desk, in 5×7 tan envelopes, our report cards were alphabetized and stacked thirty-three-high from Adams to Yetter. Two of you will redo, Miss Montgomery said, using the low vowels for failure. She sounded like she was sorry, like someone had told her she needed to repeat her first year of […]

You can toss the cross on the dash. It does look like wood, doesn’t it? Unbreakable and guaranteed for a year. They make chew toys out of this same stuff. We’ve been buying them up for a dollar ninety-seven at that new Dollar Ninety-Seven Heaven. Got three boxes in the trunk. No room for bodies […]