Ellen has chicken in her mouth when the president is shot. Momma has chicken, Andrew has chicken, we’re all eating chicken, because somebody had a coupon for Cluck’s. Because when the leader of the free world gets killed upon the big screen, nobody sees it coming—not even the animal himself.
Innocence is an epidermis, shielding our sensitive nerves from pain. Upon seeing death, that skin sloughs off all at once, a full-body degloving, and even the pressure of the air around you becomes too much to bear, a searing pain that never quite stops, ebbing for a time, then flooding back.… Continue Reading
Looters ran from burning homes carrying televisions and vases. On the lawn across from her, a prayer circle held hands and begged for deliverance. Below, two men wrestled on the ground with knives and broken bottles. Sandra studied the liquors next to her.… Continue Reading
I have felt insanity in depths and breadth, but you do not feel like insanity. You feel like home, wrapped in mystery, tied in insanity. I know how to tell the difference.… Continue Reading
By the time she was an adult, her daily life was a bonfire. Up in flames to please her boss. Crackling when taking her daughter to dance class after a long day. An inferno when making the family meals.… Continue Reading
When your dead cousin visits, you’re pleased he doesn’t smell of garbage-strewn alleys and rank BO, like his late-night poundings on your door when he’s all Come on cuz, you’ve always had it better than me, share the wealth.… Continue Reading
Make yourself look like you’re the mass killer in a courtroom, and the family’s all watching you, the stylist says. My family or the victim’s family? I ask. Uh, either one, the stylist says.… Continue Reading
He watched her staring out the window above the sink, her face opening and closing, lost in two radically different futures that flicked back and forth in her mind. The forcefield between realities quivered. He’d never felt more hopeful or more lonely.… Continue Reading
On Monday he ate through one Masonic treasure map. On Tuesday, he ate through two CIA truth serums. On Wednesday, he ate through three Church of Scientology Operating Thetan documents. On Thursday he ate through four Operation Paperclip Nazis’ employment contracts, but he was still hungry.… Continue Reading
I field call after call. My bungee cord of nonsense words stretches out across the metropolis, unknotting electrical cords, picking locked bathroom doors, yanking Londoners off railings and Tube tracks. All the while, I coo over the rescued bird.… Continue Reading