The Dragon Can’t Eat You When You’re Dancing
By Fiction Issue 120
Olive doesn’t know why she’s rushing to the brick building with the barred windows and parquet basement floor, and this is itself a kind of proof of urgency.
Read MoreFrom Until the Victim Becomes Our Own
By Fiction Issue 120
They had set up tents. Not all; some had a few blankets thrown down and were lying on them. Often there was a man with a woman and child on each blanket. It seemed a little odd to me, because some had dug a hole and built a shallow shelter with the blanket on top. It might get very windy and cold at night.
Read MoreThe Lost Ring
By Fiction Issue 119
The signs of where Esme had gone wrong, she thought, must have been there from the beginning—probably in primary colors. She wondered if burning the toast was where she’d gone wrong. Each mistake led to another, she thought, wishing she could be perfect.
Read MoreThe Extra Child
By Fiction Issue 119
Twenty years ago, we brought the first child home. We held him, and the silence before us then was the deep, vast thrum of all we didn’t know. We were here, suddenly parents. The silence weighed down the air like boulders on silk. And then, of course, he cried.
Read MoreThe Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fiction Issue 118
While all this was going on, the Christ above the altar began to come alive.
Read MoreBenedetta
By Fiction Issue 118
Good evening. Are you an angel?
Read MoreIn Between
By Fiction Issue 118
Gwanda was an entertainer who received applause alongside floggings and detentions. No matter how much the teachers punished him, he always kept a smile on his face, a pleasant kind of protest.
Read MoreSafety
By Fiction Issue 117
Lauren was waiting for the holy word of God. It was spring. Whatever.
Read MoreRule Out
By Fiction Issue 117
So much wine—wine with food and wine without, wine while they watched the kids play in the yard and when it was just the women together on a Monday night.
Read MoreFrom The Celestial Sea
By Fiction Issue 117
When I sit here alone, notebook lying open on my writing desk, I find I become someone other than the person I am when walking about or sitting in company or even sleeping.
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