In her old life, her eyes would have been anxiously scanning the room, searching for flaws. Was there enough food? Were the flowers fresh enough? Were the guests having a good time?
Gardenia
Other People’s Problems
Marissa leans a little closer, uses her confidential voice, though she’s pretty sure even his good ear doesn’t work so well these days. And he probably isn’t paying attention. Around them people are eating dinner. Chairs are being slid in and out at tables. Low voices like pillows buffer an occasional impatient “what?” and the frustrated response, “I. SAID. THIS. IS….”
Glass Spiders – Editor’s Pick
It begins with a splintering intersection of time and reality. The world shatters, seeks to cobweb, to consume the glass coffin that encases and confines. I inhale and hold and pray, but forget what I’m praying for? The sensation stalls like a pinched vein unable to release the life-giving blood within. But it hasn’t stopped. Not really.
Kind of True – Editor’s Pick
It was her customers who had started the whole acting thing. Almost every night at Chiro’s when she took their orders she was asked if she was an actor or dancer or grad student. Was it her fault that patrons, especially tourists, expected that a young server working (only temporarily!) in a Chelsea trattoria, would be headed for a big career?
Like Bowling a Strike
Clare was twenty-three, living in central Oklahoma. It was a long way from home. She wanted to write a novel and get it published, but it felt late to accomplish that. Sometimes she thought she’d give anything to sit for an hour on that worn couch with the dented cushions in her tenth-grade classroom. Clare could still remember the smell of her English teacher’s hair, a mixture of peppermint and permanent marker.
Toujours Frais
But he kept coming back. Nobody wanted to interact with him, and so when we saw him approach–either by car or by bike, he used both–somebody would prepare his coffee ahead of time. He developed a habit. Come in, pause, hover to the register, pickup his coffee, hand over some money, collect his change (I forget when he started to do this), sit for a bit, walk into the bathroom, come out 10-40 minutes later, walk down the road, come back six minutes later, finish his coffee, leave. Usually once a day, but sometimes twice. Usually afternoon, but sometimes morning, and a few times in the middle of the night. He missed a day or two, and we grew hopeful that he was gone for good. But he kept coming back.