Ghost Parachute

Everyone in my family was a janitor, so it only made sense that I become one too. My dad was the head janitor in the school district, my mom cleaned the freshman wing at the high school, and my older brother ran things at St. Mary’s hospital in town. Two days after I graduated high […]

The father breathed the night air in deep, savoring the scent of lighter fluid, gasoline, and crushed pine needles. The woods were still, clouds low and threatening rain. It was a great night to burn. The son circled the dilapidated cabin, glugging out gasoline from a red canister, accidentally splashing some on his sneakers. The […]

The pizza delivery guy who loved my sister never looked at me even though we’re identical. He wasn’t really Italian but he called himself Giuseppe and now the one we still call “the Italian” is dead. He’s dead and I prefer to imagine it was me who did the killing, slicing into the back as […]

Three children gather around a dead crow. “Maybe she’s resting,” says a girl with dirty pink shorts and a blue T-shirt. Her older brother sneers. “He wouldn’t rest like that.” She bends over. “She’s not a he.” “How do you know?” her other brother asks. His hands click rocks in his pocket, leftovers from when […]

June stops outside the liquor store on Amsterdam that has its name painted in flaking, gold letters on the glass. It’s not quite eleven and the place is empty. She hopes the man at the counter is the owner, and single, or at least a lonely manager. Or at the very least—and this is less […]

Becky was in trouble. Aunt G was going to drop by and the lampshade with elephants circling the parchment, their trunks wrapped around the tails in front, had disappeared. The ring of elephants was the latest in a parade of hideous gifts from Aunt G, and it had vanished into thin air. No one except […]