I made a mistake at dinner when I rather casually called my friend a liar. “You’re not Italian,” I said, “don’t tell the waiter your parents are from Italy just because his name is Giuseppe and you want to fuck him.” Then my friend didn’t say much all through his grilled octopus and vodka gimlet.…

Ed peered through the morning fog and traced the path of the footprints along the beach. He kneeled down and placed his hand next to one. The footprint looked about eighteen inches long. Three clawed toes splayed out from the center. Between each toe, the sand lay flat and even, the faint impressions of webbing.…

It took me more than a month to figure out why the new apartment was so dusty. The sign on the building across the street says Braverman Funeral Services in big type, and then John Lucas Braverman, Prop., in middle-sized type below that, and you only see the little type if you look closely. It…

The candle flickered, slowly puddling into a ball of wax as Alex bent over the dark gray hide. Dull pain pulsed through her shoulders, her eyes straining to see. I am too young to feel this old, she thought. Soon the sun would rise over the ocean, bathing the cottage in soft golden light, but…

I made a habit of hitchhiking during the holidays when I had no one to see and nowhere to go, which was more often than not. Strangers were always in a kind Christian mood between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I’ve never been opposed to taking advantage of others’ generosity. Which meant finding rides around the…

Another one of her husband’s business functions tonight and it was her job to play the wife. She loathed these things but faked it admirably well for short durations. Mark — her husband’s name was Mark — thought she might enjoy this one: “Samson will be there.” Everyone expected she and Samson got along, for…

The hand has to be quick, forceful, reaching under the broody hen to clutch the eggs she guards. The rats would love to get in. There are traps for them under the indoor part of the coop, far under where the dog can’t reach. The eggs are warm in my pockets. I stop by the…

When we were kids my sister and I shared dreams. Recurring, vivid scenes of the wrinkled old man at the end of the cul-de-sac, his cool, orange-freckled grandson, the boy who’d built his own tree house. Trees that turned to witches after sunset, twisting down to small, frail bodies, their dresses the dark brown of…

Except for its lemon-yellow complexion — Brie-ann thought to herself — the naked corpse was beautiful. She tried hard not to see the body in that way, as something beautiful and alive, but Brie-ann was having trouble shaking herself free from her rebellious imagination.The age of the deceased woman was probably the problem. She’d been…

Sixteen thousand applications received by the new school; two thousand selected to write the entrance exams; three hundred ten-year-olds invited for the admission interview; me finally getting my turn after waiting six hours. These are the numbers I remember. Three of us at my primary school wait four months for the list of successful applicants…

The boy massages the brush into the soap cup, building the lather white and thick, and spilling over the rim onto his thumb. The lather is warm and he can just feel it. He sets the cup on the edge of the iron stove, the brush resting in the cup. He opens the razor carefully,…

You’re fairly certain that a sudden ability to see other people’s pain as colors isn’t listed as a potential side effect of Evalia, the new arthritis drug prescribed by your doctor last week. The day after you first punch the pen injector against your thigh and feel the viscous liquid bruise its way into your…