Everyone was talking about the starships, how they had come to Earth, wondering what they wanted. So, bored out of her mind and stuck in her cubicle in the User Interface Engineering section of her company’s Website Development Department, Linda found a post on reddit that claimed they had a number you could use to text the aliens. She texted them, “Please take me with you!” Anything to get away from this shitty job, this shitty life, she thought. She…
Moms “The Joy Luck Club” is almost over. He asks, “So what was your mom like?” “I just remember her being a beautiful social butterfly. I wish I’d known her better, but I was young when she died.” I can feel my jaw tighten. I don’t want to talk about this. “What about yours?” “It was hard for her, being an unwed teenage mother. My dad occasionally showed up, but it was my stepfather that took care of us. She…
I’m waiting for the waitress to bring me my key lime pie. I check my watch. There’s still time. “Hey, there! I almost missed you. You did something to your hair.” You sit down opposite me. “Oh, yeah,” I say, still looking for the waitress. “You probably forgot. It was just last week, but of course, we haven’t seen each other in –“ “Must be five years now?” you act like it’s a question, but I know you know exactly…
I took another sip of my coffee, trying not to hate my life. “Hey, are you going to finish that?” Charlene indicated a half-eaten croissant on my plate. “No, go for it,” I mumbled, looking around for the waitress to top off my coffee cup. The coffee at this place was okay, but I had forgotten that the baked goods were not. It was nice to be able to sit on the sidewalk and watch the world go by, though. …
Jamie and me, we’re walking barefoot along the beach. Nobody sticks around after Labor Day, so the beach is empty, just two girls with the wind tangling our hair. We walk towards Dead Man’s Rock. I don’t know if anyone else calls it that, but we do. It’s a big boulder that’s only in the water when the tide’s in. When we were kids, like last summer, we used to climb on it and whoever got to the top first…
The old road she walked on every day was lined with overgrown bushes they called beach plums, though they were really wild roses. The sky was huge and overcast, and the air was full of the drone of insects overlaid with the screaming of gulls in the distance. Christina had asked her where she walked, and when she had said, “down to the salt marsh,” Christina had caught Evan’s eye as if to confirm something, and Evan had said, “Be…
Content Warning: sexual assault As Laura stepped out the door of her apartment building, the air clung to her like a skintight dress. Three a.m. and still no break from the mugginess. Crossing the parking lot to her car, she thought about what the doctor had said. There was a lot of medicalese, but what it all boiled down to was that her father had been rushed to the ER with a heart attack and was in critical condition (whatever…
Walking out after services, I hold onto Gabe’s arm. The little walkway into the cemetery is littered with acorns – little ball bearings that make me choose my way carefully. Gabe steers me onto the grass, and we stand there a moment, while I catch my breath and look for Hank’s marker. I spot the cypress that is my landmark. Last year’s grass is tan and unmown. I stumble a little bit once, but my grandson’s arm holds steady. It’s…
It was a beautiful spring day for Monday market. A pretty young woman in a green dress came to my stall early. “I’d like some eggs, please, ma’am, the fresher the better. I’ve asked my William to breakfast with me. Our wedding is at midsummer.” “Please call me Maude,” I said. “I am surely not much older than you.” I had eggs, fresh from our hens, gathered this morning. I wrapped them up carefully and handed them to her. “William…
When the temporary blindness caused by the nearby lightning had passed, Sister Yolanda could make out a dark figure through the pouring rain. She watched for a few seconds as they walked towards the old metal gate in the stone walls of the convent, then hurried to make the bed in one of the two small guest rooms. They had not had anyone visit in a long time, because an improved road skirted the woods that the old road had…