The Dead Zone
By Fiction Issue 121
Dad passed away overnight. It was a message from my ex-husband.
Read MoreThis Is the Gate of the Lord; the Righteous Shall Enter Through It
By Fiction Issue 121
We are entering in reverse order of our deaths. You don’t need to translate this.
Read MoreThe Sun in Slender Glass: A Novel in Excerpt
By Fiction Issue 121
Somewhere on this parched estate a beggar is looking for me. So says the boy.
Read MoreThe 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 More