t’s cheese, sir,” said Thelonius. He shifted his feet and shoved his hands into the pockets of his habit. He couldn’t decide which intimidated him more: the abbot, or the abbot’s desk. They bore certain similarities, even if one was flesh and blood and the other a carved chunk of graniculate.
Every morning Richard Chan sat down to a plate brimming with sausages and beet slices and a 1 liter jug of Turkish coffee. He ate while reading the newspaper. As he read, his complexion grew more and more mottled and his breathing heavier.
“We’ll hijack the ship and fly it back,” said Zufi. “It’s the only way to get home.” Alika stared at him, her eyes wide and white in the half dark. The two of them huddled side by side, bracing their hands and feet against the roof and floor of the vibrating tunnel. Goosebumps crawled across…
Mom dropped the bombshell at breakfast. “We’re thinking about going to Puerto Rico for the summer.”
sit by your side watching worlds slide by. They appear and vanish on your skin, invisible to the eye, but I feel their passage in my chest. In my mind. I watch your eyelashes flutter, watch the rise and fall of your breasts. I press your warm hand between my cold palms. You look so peaceful, but appearances can lie. I know because to the outward eye I’m awake and alive.
“She’s dead, Mr. Spencer.” Conrad stared at the detective’s upper lip. Adriana, dead? How could she be? He’d sat with her on her balcony this morning, drinking lapsang souchong with a splash of milk and honey. She’d made him scones. He’d kissed her twice. “Mr. Spencer. Are you listening? Do you understand the gravity of…
Quadrant 24b has been giving me trouble. It is difficult to manage a ten-pound core sampler with a bent spinner head while dangling from a harness and ripple cord at a height of 5 meters in the baking hot sun.
Maurice Bentonville the second hitched up his overalls, adjusted his milk-can crown, and peered through his toilet-paper-roll binoculars. His perch? A cottonwood stump. His kingdom? The river streaming by. His subjects? Trout, catfish, carp, sharks, beluga whales, crabs, crawdads, worms, water striders, and hippopotamuses.
All I’ve got is muscles and rage. If you don’t believe me, ask my knuckles. They’ve tasted more jawbones than average, blued more eyeballs, cracked a dozen ribs, and busted more cheeks than I can count. There’s more teeth embedded in my fists than bone.
I’d woken up exhausted. My bed was a rumpled mass of sheets and popcorn crumbs and melted smarties. I hauled myself upright, stumbled against the dresser, and stared bleary-eyed at my reflection. The man who looked back at me was a stranger, cut, stitched, wrenched to life like some unholy Frankenstein. I laughed. The sound gurgled from my throat, bounced like a hyena over the walls, and died when it saw the wedding ring.