Ye Gods! Annihilate but space and time/ And make two lovers happy. Alexander Pope In the sixth grade, Nikifor Vladimirovich Rosanov sat behind Praskovia Nikitichna Tarasova in every class and pulled her pigtails. She had such luxurious hair—even silkier and thicker than his Siberian cat—and her nails were trimmed unlike the cat’s. Praskovia shrieked and […]
Fiction 85
Leslee Rene Wright: Ghosts Across America
1. We’re at Niagara Falls for the second time this year, and this time we opt for the New York side. We lost our lust for crossing into Canada somewhere between Erie and Buffalo, or, more rightly, just after our daughter died, some untold months ago. The little things that had once thrilled us—like exchanging […]
Michael Davis: The Catherine Wheel
I first noticed the wolf in East Africa. Heard of brothers fighting and killing each other outside Makamba, daughters poisoning fathers in Goma, laughing while their houses burned, and everywhere the ritual of suffering enacted with a kind of desperate abandon. So I knew it had come around to this once again: an axe age, […]
Jill Birdsall: Oker’s Pond
At age thirty, Isaac Eldredge sailed south to find treasure in the Carolinas. His parents sent him for seeds to plant up north. It was the first and only time he’d left home. He visited merchants and shop owners. He bought rugs and vases and lamps. Then he found Dolly on her father’s farm. He […]