In Leila’s Balkan country most people cowered in permanent unease. Anxious about the propuh, an ill-meaning air draft apparently possessed of ambiguously mystical but lethal powers, their wet hair after bathing, or sitting on cold stairs because if you did – your bladder would catch the ‘bladder flu’. Or, you could get brain inflammation from that un-dried wet hair and die. Or pneumonia. And die …
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stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance
The pitter-patter woke Sheila the first night. A rush of footsteps tumbled through her apartment, back-and-forth past her bedroom door – a staccato like fat drops of rain hitting a tin roof. She sat up and pulled the sheets over her knees, up to her chest. She tucked her ratty t-shirt tight to her body, hugging herself. …
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When the half-moon, past a half night bent its light on the red-brown building,the misery, it quickened, the despair, it doubled, grim thoughts like fiends fourscore, the spirit they pummeled.
The Bonners, they were at it again; rusty springs on their bed creaking as the walls shook with their heaving and cursing and panting. They’d cast their blind boy outside the shabby one-room apartment; he played …
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When Patrice Hughes turned forty, her gift to herself was a week in Paris, alone. It was the Eighties, when the married women she knew rarely traveled alone. Her husband had no objection. He was happy to take care of the home front: the house, the dog, their son, Alec, who was thirteen. She and her husband were estranged, though still living together. She knew …
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Chef’s Knife
The knife shriek shriek shrieks against the rod. Fluorescent light, bouncing, highlights the grain, smearing brightness on the white subway tiles. We are not in a subway. You must have realized that. But the subway tiles are the spotless whiteness of chic. If you know about these things, then you know that too.
The knife. The knife sharp and inviting. Its edge poignant, its feel, …
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