“One day the fog will come and Mrs. Gamp will arrive.”“When will that be?”Kenzie looks down at the little boy. He still wears a diaper though he is near the age of five. Other than a dirty white shirt with an odd yellow character from some cartoon, he wears nothing else. A smudge of mustard […]
In the basement, there is candy. Boxes teetering atop boxes, overloaded with gum gums and chew worms and those little nougat-filled eyeballs that blink when you stare overlong; with honeyed do’s and honeyed dont’s; with tar braids and clots of candied floss. The basement has all the candy you’ve ever dreamed of, a sticky thrill […]
Posted (12:04 AM) Sorry for the grainy photo, my phone camera isn’t the best. I was working on my Econ paper when this moth landed on my laptop. I may have emitted a very dignified and high-pitched shout because this sucker is huge. I think it’s around three inches long and maybe five across with […]
My husband keeps secrets. Sometimes his mouth moves in little patterns, opening, his tongue pushing against the roof of his mouth, but I hear no words. His secrets are not meant for me. The roses know. He spends more and more time out in the garden. I never go out there. It would be intruding. […]
The little girl is under my porch eating a bird. Her hair is matted. She did not bother to push it back before she began, and blood has clotted against the white strands. I try to ignore her, but she is crunching its bones, and the sound is like the ground cracking open.I creep under […]
Seventy-seven steps from the back door of our house up to the little house. I’ve counted it enough times. Two hundred and forty-one if I walk all the way around it, letting the coke bottle sweat in my hand until Mama hollers out the window, “You get that Coke in there right now.” She don’t […]
My lakeside graveyard’s all I got. I inherited it from my Pop, like he did from his Pop, and you get that old picture. I’m king here—ruling over my quiet darlings. And I wear all the crowns: sole proprietor, groundskeeper, gravedigger.Been digging graves since I was a kid. I’ve planted hundreds of folks.Just last month […]
A letter, marked in gold and copper. At the corners, I write my name in the spidery writing she knows to be mine. I dispatch it to the nearest cobweb and watch the babies eat it whole. And then I wait.The next morning, the woman called Mother is still alive.I watch her arms carefully during […]
After your death, everyone’s so ready to move on. They offer to help me pack up your things, and then, to pack up my things. It’s only weeks and my father’s talking about cleaning out his guest room. Honey, he says, you can’t sleep in the same room where Gemma passed on. That’s how they […]
TRANSCRIPT OF VOICEMAIL BOX: Joselin Rose Clark. 329.501.1225ORIGINAL DATE: Fri, Dec 21, 2018INCIDENT NO. 056-0004584-12(DB)FILE CLASS: 50006 TRANSCRIBER: NW, #49453[Transcript Begins]08:24:19Hey Josie, it’s Henry. Just making sure you’re okay. I don’t know how bad it was for you, or if you even felt it, but I’d say that had to be at […]