• Assisted Living

    Read by Benjamin Ellis Fine At half past three, Dan pushed open the door to the Pioneer Assisted Living community room. Agnes and Leon were already there, unlocking the wheels on the folding tables and ushering them against pale yellow walls. He saluted a hello and moseyed over to the kitchen—which was really just what…

  • George’s Surprise

    (Read by Benjamin Ellis Fine) On Friday mornings, George awoke extra early to make meatballs. As the sun peaked its way up through the kitchen window, George rolled the doughy mounds of pork and veal into flesh-colored orbs. Shaping them with two, cupped hands, he imagined himself a modern day, Italian-American Prometheus, giving rise to…

  • Sunday Hands

    Laura Jean Jackson smoothed the cream colored wool skirt over the summit of her behind before settling into wooden pew with a creak. She sat here each Sunday, and the aural pattern of the creaking as she shimmied side to side–long, short, long long, short–was familiar as the hymns in the thick book on her…

  • Bruce and the Missing Claw

      Near the end of his overnight shift, while vacuuming the large rug in the Beryl Hotel lobby, its maroon and marigold floral patterns repeating in dizzy rows, Bruce knelt down to inspect the clawfoot on one of the armchairs. There were four armchairs in the lobby. Four armchairs. Sixteen legs. Four claws to a…

  • Birdeggs

    Birdeggs

    Sitting crosslegged, so that perspiration collected behind her knees, Velma Peach tore up thick blades of grass in her front yard. The strands were tough, “crabgrass” her father had called it, and they jabbed at the soft flesh of her palms. She ripped and ripped, then rubbed the shards against her hands, staining them green.…

  • The Girl with the Bit Part

    What makes her look back? She walks with an open face because she likes when they see. She keeps her hair swept back and keeps a slower pace. Slow, but still purposeful. Her nose stands upturned (from genetics, not from the recent success of the television show on which she has a bit part). It’s…

  • A Ride to the Ballgame

    “Do you know what I’ve come to realize?” The girl spoke like a woman with years of experience and not a college freshman. She was posing the question to her mother, whose baseball cap and blonde ponytail matched her own. “Riding the subway is just like taking an elevator, but horizontally.” The mother smiled. She…