i. the departure 1942: My father was G.I. Taylor, the English physicist who worked on fluid dynamics. My grandfather was J. J. Thomson, who basically discovered the electron. And my great-grandfather was George Boole, who requires no introduction. Naturally, it… Continue Reading
The hotel room is wrecked with empty bottles. It smells like sweat and cigarettes, and on the TV the college kids bump and grind through spring break. All night these flickering reality shows have been getting it on in the… Continue Reading
Lan resented that her children were smart. There were four of them. Each only a year apart. Nathalie and Nathan had been on honor roll since the 9th grade. Her first two had already gone. She saw Amy four times… Continue Reading
I have my winter coat on, as if I am ready to be arrested, but actually it’s because HEAP has run out. They give you an initial grant in November that is not enough, but if you manage to get… Continue Reading
I could make things up on the spot, and it came out natural. I changed words around and added something of my own here and there. Nothing do or die, nothing really formulated, all major chord stuff, maybe a typical… Continue Reading
Tehachapi was a rugged area parched for water and education and jobs and a million other things. Her father was a construction worker and her mother was a veterinarian. Soon after she was born her mother lost the practice and… Continue Reading
They are hard little mankilling devices. I have made them myself, twenty-nine of them, that is seven and seven and seven on my belt and seven in my fist and one in the chamber. Their heads are dimpledandhollow.
Most of our first grade class is at the sleepover tonight. Our parents are busy and we are free. Everyone who’s my friend and a bunch of kids who aren’t are all here, ready to stay up late and then… Continue Reading
They were just getting out of dinner at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel Grand Dining Hall, the one where jackets are recommended, where the places of origin of the waiters are written on their golden nametags: Hungary, Kenya, Mozambique. Courtney… Continue Reading
“If hard fate’s not to hem us in Neither must we hem ourselves in by fact. Be our setting changeless or bleak Happy chimeras are not ours to enact, Only to think—for i’ faith we’re free now If but we… Continue Reading
She is a girl you know from the stories you have read. Her role in them is peripheral—the sister of a husband or the mother of a friend. And yet she is important still. Her purpose is to fill space,… Continue Reading
My first instinct upon waking up is to find a scrap of paper and write a scrap of something down. Some tatter of what remains to me from where I’ve been. But I don’t. My contract forbids me, andIhave