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Fiction
Impossible
It is Christmas Eve and I am visiting my dying father. He has been in bed since the robbery. The smell in his room is dark green, the odor of fermenting vegetables and flesh.
March 1993January
I take another drink and rouse slowly from the state I entered when I first rested the rifle across the wheel line. It is a state that I impose upon myself at such times, a suspension of thought in favor of impartial and necessary action.
March 1993Stones: A Love Story
When Izzy gets to the boardwalk, she thinks about turning back. Maybe he won’t remember her, maybe he’s forgotten it all.
February 1993Zen Masters
I left college to seek enlightenment. I went to live at the Golden Gate Zen Center, a Buddhist community midway between the Haight and the financial district.
February 1993Evangel
I stood up and reeled. Blood washed from my brain. My vision began to shrink, and the people in the room seemed separated from me by some fold in the air.
February 1993Gestures Of Protection
“It’s like a spiritual cruise ship, a love boat,” says Joan. She’s determined to be positive. The lounge on the first floor is decorated with large posters of attractive, radiantly smiling men and women who have given money to the ashram.
January 1993My Life As Giselle
Giselle didn’t get up and leave when people started talking about the war. She stayed in the conversation, switched to waving her hands in front of other people’s faces instead of her own. When she listened in on the next table, she leaned over and said Pardonnez-moi before offering a pithy rejoinder to something she’d overheard. These talks were possible because people all around her were thinking, she was thinking, it was understood that everyone was thinking, that everyone should think.
January 1993Small Favors
I started using carry-out at the grocery store when I got pregnant. Even when I could still lift the bags, I decided not to. Having put off pregnancy until forty, I didn’t want to take any risks. After a month or two, Cao showed up. He looked Vietnamese, his black hair slicked back, new-employee shiny. At first I didn’t care who carried my groceries, but then I started lining up for the registers he worked. Cao made the extra effort.
January 1993The Door
She climbed the little trail to her cabin, her mind weary, each step pulling at her energy. But the sight of the door took her breath away. Something filled her, swept through her body singing. She went toward it slowly, then ran her two hands over every inch.
December 1992A Snapshot Of Them Smiling
“One,” the monster counted, “two,” the licks it would take, “three,” to get to, “four,” the center, “CRUNCH! Four. Four licks, hmmm.” The monster nibbled down Marc’s legs, arms, and then the rest disappeared in a giant, uncomfortable gulp.
December 1992
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