Despite many legal infractions, Uncle Joe had only been arrested once. In the summer of 1987, Joe traveled to Eugene, parked his van in the middle of Autzen Stadium’s parking lot, laid out a large blanket and spent a couple hours fixated on a dragonfly that kept buzzing around his vehicle. The Grateful Dead were to play the next day, the weather was hot, and the stadium was the largest venue in the area.
Read more.Ithaca
The mere thought of a huge sailboat on land, propped up on stilts, was so unnatural that as hard as Felix tried to suppress revulsion, he couldn’t help but feel it rise.
He was fourteen and the only times he had seen sailboats were years earlier when they lived in America and he was in the backseat as his parents drove along the Hudson or within glimpsing distance of Long Island Sound. They were birds, that’s what sailboats were. Birds skimming the ripples of water. Complete unto themselves. Untethered. Free.
The Serpent Papers: Nietzsche, Supermen & the Death of God
The next day, Gilly and I were sitting in The Gold Rail Tavern when the front door swung open admitting the figure of a slender man blown in like a leaf by a bolt of cold air. He stepped into the dimness of the tavern limping in pain, clothes hanging on his bones like a coat rack.
Read more.Jude
I always hated driving. More than that, I always hated the backseat, and I always hated riding shotgun, even. I hated it back when I was a little girl in the backseat of my daddy’s Ford Super Deluxe. I don’t know why, really, maybe it’s because someone always lights up a cigarette and chokes up everyone in the car, or maybe it’s the way I get carsick if the windows ain’t up. I don’t know, I just don’t like it.
Read more.Under the Microscope
Deep down, I will always be the pastor’s daughter. While Inspector Corrick has come to Keystone School as a private investigator, my roiling stomach imagines he is a messenger from God, a toad-like minion in the army of St. Peter. Is he here to decide whether there has been a crime committed, and if so, my part in it, or to ascertain whether there has been a moral failure?
Read more.Iben… I’ve Been Through Some Sh#@!: Unbroken
I looked at myself in the rearview mirror one last time before entering the building. The gym was packed. As I took the podium, one young man, then another, clapped. “Thank you,” I said before beginning. “I’m Iben Okafor and it’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to address you today. Before I get started, how many of you have brothers and sisters?”
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