Fiction

  • The Sweater

    I ONLY DECIDED TO GO AT THE LAST MINUTE. It had been a busy week and I didn’t much feel like capping it off with small talk, but Ava texted me at lunchtime to ask if I would please go with her, she really needed to get out of the house for an hour. We…

  • A Kidney for Francis

    THE AMMONIA REEK OF FRANCIS’S BREATH filled the examination room. Jemma forced herself not to pinch her nose, instead gripping onto the sides of her clipboard. Dogs with kidney disease had breath that could make a litterbox smell pleasant. She winced as Dr. Werner forcibly grabbed the schnauzer’s jaw, checking his teeth. “Also want to…

  • The Song of Dahut

    EVERY NIGHT, BEFORE I FELL ASLEEP, my mother would sing it to me: the song of Dahut, the princess of Ys, the Mari-Morgen. She sang it in a low, gentle voice, so that for many years I didn’t realize it was meant to be a sad song. O from where do my city’s bells now…

  • Body of Theseus

    “WHAT’S THE VERDICT DOC, is this the end of the line?” Dr. Cicely stood at the door to the patient’s room, taking a moment to gather her thoughts while she looked at him. He was taking the situation better than some patients she’d treated, though she knew how quickly the emotional pendulum swung from jaunty…

  • If

    IF – A WORD THAT FLOATS effortlessly from the lips and fades along with its forgotten promises and takes with it a myriad of possibilities and a wealth of potentially better memories. It has cast its shadow over every misfortune in my life: if I didn’t take that year off in university or if my…

  • The Far Empire of Sanguinity

    LISA WINTER COULD ONLY SEE the back of Luc’s head as the repurposed school bus descended the steep valley toward Ahuachapan. The transmission whining through its downshifts was very loud. Over the noise Luc was trying to talk to Concha, the Volunteer Director, and the guys from Habitat for Humanity who were building houses at…

  • Girlie Pops

    THE FIRST TIME someone’s shoes showed up in the toilet, people in class thought it was an accident, or at the least a one-off. Like there had been a vendetta, some score to settle or some shit like that. It was a targeted crime, they said. And it was in truth. Bianca hadn’t let me…

  • Eight of Cups

    THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE JULY HEAT WAVE, a Friday, I drove Maggie and Patrick out to Nassau County to spend a month with their father, the narcissistic sociopath, or the sociopathic narcissist (at least according to me, the armchair psychologist). Temperatures had been hovering in the high 90s the entire week, reaching over 100…

  • Quid Pro Crow

    WHAT MADE ME THINK THAT GOING TO MONTREAL in the middle of February would somehow shake me out of my seasonal depression? The free flight from Prince Edward Island? The free hotel room for the two days of this literary conference? The opportunity of networking with other writers, editors, illustrators, publishers, agents and educators from…

  • Range Anxiety

    JENNY SAID SOMETHING THE OTHER DAY at Elena’s soccer game that I’ve been thinking about a lot. Jenny’s my ex-wife. We get along, not just for Elena. It’s in our natures to keep the peace no matter what’s roiling inside us. I was telling her about my consulting business, StoryTeam, which has branched into internal…