The misunderstandings started on a Wednesday, a not-so-unusual, early-February Wednesday when I was supposed to make dinner, but time had gotten away from me, somehow, again, even though I had so much of it—even so, it was already six o...
Chika climbs in through the store window first and then holds the shutter as the woman climbs in after her. The store looks like it was deserted long before the riots started; the empty rows of wooden shelves are covered in yellow dust, as...
In my dream, we are driving so fast the car sprouts wings—giant, bony, feather-covered wings—and we are flying like gulls, steady, just above the surface of the glossy pavement. Everyone is laughing bubbles and confetti and the wind laces...
No sooner had the taxi lurched into the traffic than Rowen’s father leaned forward in the seat. “Oh, no, we don’t.” He put his hand on the driver’s shoulder and said something in Vietnamese. Before the driver had fully registered...
Paul, in this case, is a widower. His wife died thirteen years ago. He kept their daughter away as much as he could. There were relatives around to play with her, to shower her with gifts and praise. His wife grew pale in the study. Her...
“I am not smart, I am not pretty.” This is what Kiyoshi Toyoda’s sister had written before leaping from the top of their twelve-story apartment building some time before dawn, leaving her body to be discovered by an old man on his early...
It’s dusk, the sky still light, but the sand at their feet in shadow. It slides away as they descend the dune, and ahead of him Karsten sees Wolf stumble, struggling to keep his balance with his hands up.
Special Agent B. W. Molloy, now retired, tells the following story: One morning the body of a child was found in the Rose Garden. The sun had just risen. A concert had been given the night before in celebration of the National Arts and...
In Chicago, while taking the El from Wrigley Field to Evanston, Rudy O’Hara was certain he recognized the woman sitting across the train’s aisle, but he couldn’t place her.
She asked me to go with her to pick out a trunk for her journey. It seemed to me like a strange request as, though neither of us had said it, we both knew that her leaving was the way we were breaking up. Even stranger was that I agreed to...