Category: Original Work
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The shop smells like cut stems and lemon-scented Lysol. It’s one of the few places in the city that stays the same, year after year, even as the lifespan of its patrons shortens and the yellowish haze outside grows thicker. “Six pink carnations, six white daisies,” she says to the florist, hesitates a moment, then…
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You know the line: it’s not you, it’s me. You were perfect, I swear. Couldn’t have asked for better. Even that one time you flooded out of nowhere, leaving me to drive to the auto repair shop with my pedals nearly underwater. Even when your cruise control stopped working halfway through my two-week drive to…
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“There is a spot for you in Heaven, but only if you’re willing to open your heart like a door to Him,” Pastor Samuel had said that morning in his East Texas drawl, leaning on his podium. “Open your heart and let Him in.” Susannah was trying. She wanted to be close to Him. She…
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It’ll happen like this: You will scrape the ice off the windshield. Slow, at first, carefully. You will shovel the snow into neat little piles for your kids to scavenge for snowmen after school. You will climb into the mid-size SUV, silver,and wring out your dripping wet jeans. You will turn the key but the car won’t start. The car won’t start.…
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The room is painted blue. The wooden bed frame, the quilt, the sheets, the nightstand, the lamp, the doorknobs, the window panes, the slippers by the bed. All blue. She remembers the color before she remembers her own name. Blue. Then, Clara. Is that her name? No, someone else’s. She looks at her reflection in…
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“Does your mother know you drive like that?” You were angry and I was mortified. He was younger than I am now, blonde, in a black leather jacket some student would scavenge for seven bucks at the thrift store ten years later, skid marks and all. In my memory, he smirks, or maybe that was you. I like to think of…
