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Fiction
The Color Of Their Souls
There was a tear in our screen door and I would peek through it at the little houses across the street. The house across from ours was purple. There were many wild-colored houses on our block, like a row of cheap drinks; their great snarls of TV antennas were the swizzle sticks.
August 1995The Wasp Eater
The wasps looked the same dead as alive: you could be fooled by their sci-fi armor into treating them more warily than they deserved. That was why, when you slipped one of them into your mouth and the wings and legs dissolved and you silently rolled the hard skeleton over your tongue, you were swallowing fear itself.
August 1995The Break
I don’t sleep. My head’s a bunch of clacking pool balls, worrying around about things. That’s why I hear Mrs. Patterson tiptoe into my room. I can see from the hall light it’s her: she’s wearing her hospital gown, her red high heels, red kid gloves, and matching purse.
August 1995I Wish I Had The Energy To Clean My Stove
Since I’ve never had an orgasm, I don’t know exactly how to fake one, but he seems satisfied with my little act. You’re the greatest, he always says afterward. You are, too, I say. It must have been in bed with Les that I learned to be such a liar.
July 1995Orson And Me
And now I know that He wants me to try to write a book again and that this time I’ll succeed.
July 1995Annie’s Hair
As she sat up, Annie kicked at a pile of hair near her feet. The hair screamed and begged for mercy. She told it to shut up or the broom was going to get it. After that the hair was quiet.
June 1995Hibernating
It was bear shit, suddenly familiar and evocative. A pile lay steaming on the doorstep of a boarded-up hotel. I felt hot iron in my legs and pretended to fumble for something in my pocket as I crouched in the doorway and inhaled deeply.
June 1995Oleander
Marie loved the sun so much, she got skin cancers from it, which she perversely believed only the sun would help. Doctors periodically scraped or burned the cancerous cells off her face and arms, leaving her to hole up in her trailer for weeks listening to the radio until they healed.
May 1995Hats And Veils
Vadim felt the wind-borne particles of water bursting in the hazy sunlight. He breathed the firs’ musty aroma and remembered Bosnia’s mountain pines above his red-tiled house, and the day Serb soldiers had firebombed the forest and his house had burned in high-explosive flames.
May 1995Selected Stories
I have discovered that by using a very long straw, I can drink soda from my neighbor’s apartment.
May 1995
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