*** Megan Giddings is currently an MFA student at Indiana University. She was a 2013-2014 Kathy Fish Fellow and Writer-in-Residence at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her work has been or will soon be featured in The Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal, … Continued
In the morning, in the hazy light, you make bologna sandwiches on white bread with mustard and American cheese, then wait out the time before the turntable listening to rock and roll. Then the time comes, and you step into … Continued
Harry is gardening. Flowers, he tells me. For the dog. Dogs need flowers too. Really, I tell him. Harry doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m being sarcastic, that I’m making a joke at his expense. I’ve been practicing deadpan for … Continued
Our parents were looking for an end-run around human suffering. We left our worldly home on a foggy early morning, low clouds that smelled like seawater. “Zendo-by-the-Sea,” said our dad, Ray, trying to catch my sister and me in the … Continued
Before you open your eyes you crave mercy. You are cold and uncomfortable, nothing feels right. Your roommate yells at you, his words make little sense. Naked, curled in a ball under the dinning room table you open your eyes. … Continued
I’m done being friends with dreadlocked white guys. But try telling Andy, the only person ever to make a homosexual pass at me. In fairness to Andy, it was Halloween, I was dressed as Lara Croft, and I do have slim wrists and … Continued
“There’s a ghost in this house,” says Monica. “Stop it,” says Nell, holding her palm up flat. Just outside the window, beside a low, bare hemlock branch, a ghost is listening. Most people imagine ghosts as the leftovers of … Continued
I dream I am a mountain. Alone until the sun dips behind me and everyone says how good we go together. I want to believe, but when I wake up he’s glowing outside my window, not wanting company. Lena stops scribbling … Continued
Since Rooey died, I’m no longer myself. Foods I’ve hated my entire life, I crave. Different things are funny. I’ve stopped wearing a bra. I bet they’re thinking about firing me here at work, but they must feel bad, my … Continued
You will be twenty-seven when you see the prison again. You will be wandering through aisles of junk at a flea market, holding your fiancée’s hand. “You don’t hate this, do you?” she’ll say, leaning into you, loving you for … Continued
The Amber Chamber is missing. How can a room itself go missing? What happened to the Catherine Palace? It’s still there—only the Amber Chamber is gone. It is worse than a whole palace vanishing, unmoored from its foundation, the cellars … Continued
I call her Honey Bunny—an utter cliché. That’s lame, I know, but I value clichés. They do set limits. And limits are the bedrock of sanity: without them passions would be too dark, wounds too deep, and fear would never … Continued
Translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris Ladies and Gentlemen, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here. Hello, everyone. I wanted to greet a number of you in person, but I see now that some of … Continued
The old woman, rummaging through her purse, asks, “What was that again?” and the cashier—a frog-eyed gum-chewer with dreads, a Live Strong bracelet, and a nametag-less green apron—says, “Eighty-eight, sixty-six.” Old woman says, “Okey dokey,” whips out a faux-leather booklet, … Continued
Tenth Avenue, New York That last time I was in Chelsea, I walked up and down Eighth Avenue not remembering where The Half King was. I was thirty-nine then, two whole avenues off, trying to remember who I was from … Continued
It began with the smell of burning. Daily, before my eyes even opened, dream narratives, swept up into Suddenly the sky turned black climaxes, collapsed, undermined by the identification, all too familiar, of the acrid scent nearly universally recognized as … Continued
Three months after his prison stint for starting a forest fire that killed a man, Armando’s father drives his family past the Supermax outside Florence, Colorado. He’s in good spirits. “You know the guy that invented the Richter scale? Dude … Continued
“Where were you last night?” It’s not that she cared. His absence hadn’t kept her up. She’d fallen asleep as usual to the Home Shopping Network, last chance at that dragonfly brooch for only $19.95. She’d woken with the credit … Continued
Let me tell you about my dream, my father said. Two black men walk into a bar and the rosy-faced, white barkeep says we don’t serve niggers in here and one of the men points to the other and says … Continued