PHOTO KIOSK My parents will retire soon, their eyes too fuzzy, their hands too shaky to fill prescriptions, and this crusty old pharmacy will be my cross to bear. And…
Horror
A Quiet Cup of Tea
She smelled her first. Heavy musk perfume, sweat, stale lavender and smoke. Florence ordered her nose to remain unwrinkled and glanced around the dim tea room, balancing her tray. The…
We Drink to Life
My work demands the completion of many unpleasant tasks, but the most unpleasant are these quarterly visits to my grandfather. As the one who’d gotten him committed to the institution,…
Borscht Belt Bodhisattva
1. The Black Hole of Comedy I made my way down the dank, filthy stairs, into the darkness where jokes go after they’ve died. I descended into Ha-Ha Hell, like…
Memento Mori Theater
Note: I met Olga Taran many years ago by a strange and happy series of coincidences. An interest in Descartes led me to study geometry. Since my education had been…
Three Flash Fictions
People are Strange This is the end for my dad, but he’s died before, so maybe I’m wrong. I know it’s a cliché, but deathbed regret is a real thing.…
A Pox on Both Our Houses
A POX ON BOTH OUR HOUSES Ah, syphilis—so sweet, so soft and sibilant, the most beautiful word in the English language. I sing the infectious tune, the bacterial…
Hairs
Journal Entry #1 There is more hair in the sink. There is always more hair in the sink. And in the shower. And in the drain. And in my hands.…
Teacher’s Pet
Sunlight streamed through the westward windows at a slant, glinting off the twenty desks arranged in standard grid formation. That sunlight seemed almost heavenly to Jackie Potter as she sat…
2 Poems: Barbara Holland
Huldra She is Swedish, and one of those,you know. Big. Green eyes and red hair,all clinging velvet and ropesof beads in the front, with coldand cleanly chiseled features.Real Nordic beautywith…