Ghost Parachute

RaeLynn had moved to California from Mississippi when she was eighteen years old. She’d been prom queen so, naturally, she should be famous. Or so the Hattiesburg town narrative had gone. Her boyfriend received an athletic scholarship to a college in Indiana and felt he should use that time to “explore his sexuality” before committing […]

Every year, on her birthday, Ela did something she’d never done before. She’s lived a good life, run her own business, never had children, saved up some money, likes to enjoy herself. Sixty-one, she stepped out of a perfectly good aeroplane. Sixty-two, she took acid. Sixty-three, she took acid and stepped out of a perfectly […]

My husband is handing me the pen he has bought for my birthday. He’s not my husband actually. Technically he still is, yet I can’t consider him part of the team since last night, when he asked for a divorce. He claims it’d be too cruel to tell me on my birthday. Yet he was […]

At first it didn’t hurt, really. A small prick, almost imperceptible, and two evenly spaced beads of blood that rolled down her shin unnoticed and dried on her dirty white socks. A sensation that was ignored almost as soon as it was registered, like the many small scratches and bruises one attains in life that […]

The Model A broke down on Route 66 as we entered Flagstaff, Arizona. Our two boys, Benjamin and Arthur, tied ropes around the fender, and pulled the car while Benjamin’s wife Rose followed behind with the baby. We followed behind Rose. The kids insisted we stay in the car, but we knew the boys would […]

You say, “There’s nothing wrong with a little touchy feely,” then touch me there.  The Greyhound bus driver doesn’t notice.  The orange-crushed sun outside doesn’t notice.  The spastic horsefly batting my seat front doesn’t notice.  So maybe I don’t either. We pass adobe buildings with their sloped shoulders and persimmon skin.  Inside the bus, the […]

Mabel soaked her rag in paint thinner and dug into the grooves of the molding. The building groaned with pleasure. “Promise you’ll do Aggie next.” Mabel smiled at St. Agnes’ spire out the window. “If they pay me.” She dipped her rag again, wrapped it around a knob and –like pulling wax from an ear– […]

My cohort at the School of Social Work solidifies our project idea the first time we meet. I grind my teeth, eying the luxury apartments halfway finished across the street, blocking the view of Lake Washington the homes have had on this hill for almost a hundred years. My stomach whirls at the thought of […]

Now it is finally over. For weeks, this is what I’d wished for. An end. This quiet. My heart safely locked away. And yet I feel neither peaceful nor rested. I lie awake on my cot, push peas and carrots around my plate. The fact is I liked the fight on the moon. Even though […]