I’m hungry. I don’t usually wake up hungry. Usually a post-sleep panic grips my stomach and doesn’t let go for two or three hours. Five if I was drinking the night before. Even if it was a little bit, I won’t tolerate breakfast. Today was different. I got out of […]
Dad said a man was coming from the city to photograph us tomorrow. I never had a photograph taken of me before. My parents had one taken with James when he was a baby. Eliza and I weren’t born yet. The picture sits over our mantle, embroidered in a gold
The Awful Thing We Did to Eliza Read More »
Pistachio nuts littered the thin blue vinyl covering of the table. Salt and dust collected on the pads of Brendan’s fingers. He cracked each nut with excessive force, letting the splintered shells fall idly from his hands. Not that he was paying any attention to them. His gaze was focused
The storm door clacked against its frame without rhythm. Chickens scuttered through the dirt, clucking restlessly. The clouds had sunk low over the farmhouse. They smothered the earth, draining the red shutters and dirty white house of their color. “Mama, there’s no time!“ Verna was walking Pa down the porch
The vault is open. Fisch has some flash bangs he snagged from when he was in special forces. He tosses one through the open door. We cover our ears. Inside, civilians are sprawled out on the ground. Powder hangs in the air. The windows are bleached. Those people depositing their
The soggy heathland hugged itself underneath a dome sky. Tracts of mire lay sunken in some places, valleys of soft earth unable to withstand the oppressive atmosphere above it, while other acres were crumpled against the high rock beneath them. Dry and tender grass creased by an icy warm wind,
A bomb went off in the city. It happened on Monday. Today is Thursday. My dad was there. He hasn’t come back yet. I’ve been sitting at the window every day waiting for him to come home. Mom says the bomb interrupted the electric grid in the city, so there’s
Eliza was in her bed upstairs. Mother cleaned her up. She made her look very pretty. Like sheʼs sleeping. I donʼt know why we didnʼt expect this to happen. Not because of the way she was. More because of what we did to her. My brother James and I, we
