Ghost Parachute

Joe loves the perfect son the moment he enters the world. “I will raise him as if he is my own,” he proclaims, and Maryanne glows in the warm morning sun filling the hospital room. They raise their perfect son, Joe ceaselessly marveling over their perfect son’s, well, perfection, and Maryanne always remembering, eyelids heavy. […]

She treated her skin like flour, an insipid and useless substance whose taste depended solely on the ingredients mixed into it. Some days the flour seemed too pale, so she added a pint of vanilla and stirred until the two blended enough to become one. On other days she caressed the flour with the tip […]

Melissa sat alone in a crowded diner and stared into a lonely cup of black coffee. Her pancakes covered in syrup were soggy and untouched. She struggled to tame her jumbled thoughts as she dug her fingernails deep into her scalp. She needed to feel something. Anything. Then she heard it. Crying. It cut her […]

One afternoon, I found myself alone with stash man in the common room.  We called him that because of his crumpled Sears bag filled with miscellaneous stuff, like Snickers bars, dirty fidget spinners, or mismatched hospital socks. I glided over to the mint green sofa where stash man sat smiling, waving his stubby hand to […]

She was unlucky. Her mother died. Her brother abandoned her. Still she had the best treasure in the world; she was breathing; she was young. But she could not see it. She always moaned, “My mother! My brother! I cannot labor alone!” She wailed so piteously that the rabbits lay prostrate in the garden, flattening […]

You hold the man who once held you. On his shoulders or swung from your pits. In his arms you were air and now his body has become economical. He’s travel size as you transport his chicken bones from his chair to his chair (the one with the wheels). And his mind, well, it’s gone. […]