Months ago I made an arrangement with my neighbor. Whenever he wants to smoke a cigarette, which he always does out the open window in his living room, he knocks twice on our shared wall. That way I know to close the window in my living room, which is less than ten feet from his.…

They say that if you see a bear, you should speak these words: “Hey, Bear.” Speak, not shout, in an even tone. A greeting with a message on its back: I’m human. Avoid Me. You already know that. They say that if a bear is thirty feet away, it’s already too late. Better to keep…

A boy is born, nose running before he knows why, but he knows this place doesn’t feel like home, doesn’t feel like warmth, doesn’t feel like womb, and the room is bright, bright like a future might be if you run long enough, but how long is long enough and does speed affect time or…

The doctor gives me conflicting information about my heart. After this, I feel a shift in my own personal gravity. Each step is something weightier than before. On my morning walk, it is over ninety degrees. My own shadow scares me and I feel my heart rate increase, my chest tighten. If I were my…

Water pushed across the floor of the basement, gray paint loosening in large mushroom blooms, chips bubbling and floating away. The sump pump bobbed above the drainage pit as the pipe above it dripped steadily down the side wall, evolving into a flow that raced across one thousand square feet and lapped the stairs. The…

We catch the bus to Waikiki on a Saturday, leaving our dormitories on the mountain behind. We want to tan and check out the hot tourists. The bus is cheap, only fifty cents. Our bags are packed full of coconut oil from Tahiti, blanket-sized beach towels, and sandwiches from the dining hall. There’s no AC…

I had come to dinner at my father’s — our monthly ritual — but after the smoked brisket he left. I did the dishes, then looked for him out back and found him dragging a piano into the backyard. He had it on two wooden planks that he rotated, moving one ahead and then sliding…

You were sitting at the kitchen table when he told you he was moving to Hollywood to follow his dream of becoming an actor. He ate beignets you made from scratch. Smacking his lips as remnants of the powdered sugar dotted his chin. You smiled, even though you felt like you’d been gut-punched. You wondered…

Years later, moments after she narrowly escapes the fate of Joyce’s Eveline and is safely inside the train pulling out of the dreadful, damp town, and the eyes of the dark young person at the elbow all aglow with the vision of far sunlit lands, this day comes to her like some forgotten smell. She…

Daylight spills over the horizon and floods the paths of the famous cemetery. From the rooftop patio of an adjacent gastropub, the superintendent of the dead appraises his domain. He wonders what it might be like to live in a city that boasts, for example, a famous zoo. As the sun ascends, the shadows of…

Translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey The first time I made a wish, I wished for a tin frog that made a loud clicking sound when you squeezed it, which I’d seen lying around at a friend’s house. The next time I played there, I took the frog home with me. This is how my first…

Are the other mothers working harder than she is, she wonders, so very much harder? Ought she to be ashamed? Or are they working markedly less hard — watching movies in the middle of the day, taking time to smell the roses as it were? Are not their families better off under the light hands…