Fiction

Relief, Relief

Relief, Relief

She’d heated the ham in the fellowship hall that morning. It had been that blue time of the morning, and the swamp in front of the church was still chirping with frogs. She had let herself into the side door of the church—it was a vinyl-sided building built like a…
Little Piles of Change

Little Piles of Change

Colly was having a pint with Pat in Kavanagh’s after work. Pat had won twenty euro on a scratcher that morning and Colly knew it had been burning a hole in his pocket all day, that he’d be gunning for a pint. Colly was happy not to be going home…
Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet

If Jaya had been paying closer attention, the tea wouldn’t have been necessary. It had seemed like an extreme measure to take, relevant only to those with severe anxiety instead of distracted suburban women like herself. Yet how mild were its effects now, just the amplification of these animal sounds…
The Husband Tree

The Husband Tree

My daughter is working, early, in the yard. I hear her footsteps from my bedroom, my windows overlooking the teardrop of grass and the ring of hostas and ferns, the Japanese Maple on the very edge of my property. It’s been this way all summer. She’s left her job, moved…
For What It’s Worth

For What It’s Worth

Occasionally someone would stop Elmer Newby in a store and ask him why in the world he’d help the government run people off their land. Elmer always clenched his teeth and stiffened his shoulders. His cheeks turned red. “Hell, I didn’t decide this. That was some fool in Washington,” he…
A Great Distance

A Great Distance

for Daniel Wallace When she was six years old, she spent two nights lost in the woods. Her mother and father had decided to camp in the Smoky Mountains for the weekend, leaving Raleigh on a June morning and arriving at the park entrance in mid-afternoon, just in time to…
Market Forces

Market Forces

She drove down on a glorious May morning, and had she not already known she was leaving God’s country she would have suspected she was entering it. Kathryn Banks had woke in an angle of light, the early sun falling through the bedroom window of her Loudon County estate and, for…
Pile of Feathers

Pile of Feathers

The pile of feathers was right in the middle of the dirt side-path, leading to the ruins of a tobacco shed. The feathers were clean, June noticed that first: as if freshly plucked, no hint of parasites or smell of decay. “Get away, Elvis.” The hound dog abandoned his tentative…