For Rosh Hashana, my mother took me and my father to her sister. We had a celebratory dinner with a honey cake for desert to make the upcoming year sweet, and my uncle spoke against God and religion, a habit he developed for holiday dinners. The three of us stayed there for two days. I called the neighborhood kids to join me in my circus training, while my parents had grapes or cake on the verandah with relatives.
Fire Damage
The trainmaster nodded as Roy stepped forward. “Okay, pay attention. The yardmaster is Hank.” He glanced toward the tracks. “That’s him over there with no shirt on. He’ll tell you what to do. If you get injured, tell Hank, and he’ll tend to it. Don’t bother the railway surgeon unless you need something amputated. Got it?”
Long Ago Is Far Away
Danny placed his hand in O’Hara’s and left it to O’Hara to shake it. What kind of handshake was that? No sense of joy, no enthusiasm for an old friend. It almost made O’Hara step back to re-evaluate the person in front of him. They had double-dated the McCormick twins, and smoked pot huddled in the nearby woods on winter nights so cold the trees made cracking sounds. Didn’t this mean anything to Danny?
The Machine
I sprinkle shuffle wax on the shiny deck of the bowling machine. I concentrate — my hand on the cool metal puck, testing the friction before the push and then the folding of the pins and the whir of spinning numbers. I’m careful to stay behind the foul line, even when dad’s not giving me his side-eyed look to make sure I’m still there, playing by the rules.
The Snapper – Editor’s Pick
In an instant, she stands outside the door again. Her brother’s room. She’s been here before, fondling the doorknob, wishing to go in. For the first time, though, she has the key. Her breath quickens. Her belly seizes up. It’s been sixteen years since she last entered this room. Her mother goes in there, maybe. Her father too, before he died. Or maybe the room sits empty, has sat empty for all these years. Holding its own ghosts since her family closed it up the week after Evan turned eighteen.
Like Hemingway – Editor’s Pick
I got drunk in the hotel room and considered leaving several times. I actually decided to leave but by that point I was too drunk to drive. So I spent a few days in the hotel. My mother didn’t know I was coming, I could leave at any moment, and she would be none the wiser. I drank coffee and wrote in the mornings and afternoons, and then drank bourbon and wrote in the evenings and nights. I wrote to find the answer but drank to avoid it, and they fed off one another like a snake eating its own tail...