The seal is dying. They’re all dying. Maybe a thousand are left in the world to sun on volcanic beaches. But this seal is dying as we speak: a rock juts from its skull. The seal bleeds as we snap pictures. What does a seal, a dying seal, make of our bright floral prints, our…

When the doctor comes out June is in the process of deciding whether or not the active suspension of fear is required at this juncture. The task is familiar: mornings as a child she climbed into the car and placed her hands beneath her thighs, the highway a necessary danger. Her mother is the sort…

Paula said she was afraid to venture more than waist-deep into the water because she didn’t swim. She and Evan had driven off the main road and found the enclosed beach. If she were flying above it in a plane or if she were a bird, it would look like a turtle with its front…

Dusk swallows the harbor. No stars or moon yet, making the sky a dull, purplish thing. Behind him, over the sea wall, the city lights are flickering on. He can tell by the glittering patches on the waves, static and unnatural. He can tell by his own shadow bending awkwardly over the shore, submerging into…

I only had one friend. Guncha Epstein. Nobody liked Guncha because she was adopted from Turkmenistan and didn’t smile very much. She said Americans smile too easily and that smiling so much is crass in a world with so much suffering. She talked about her Turkmen people a lot, how they kicked out the Peace…

The living room was empty except for the girl with pigtails and the going-away card she wanted us to sign. “Not now,” we said with bottles in our fists. The room’s orange glow reminded us of tanning salons and taxidermy. We made for the kitchen and found the corkscrew, the bottle opener, glutted on booze…

When I lived in that house I always used to look outside, and that day when I looked outside I saw where they left the baby. The baby’s parents were gone. The moment dilated. I tried to think about whether this seemed irresponsible. I thought about the question of what does and does not coo.…

We — those of us at the academy with money to burn — wanted to go to town. Of course, we always wanted to go to town, would have always agreed to go, whether we had money or not, because somebody with money would surely take pity on us and buy us something, but moreover…

5. The girl’s father arrives home from work and sits at the kitchen counter without taking off his work boots or rinsing out his thermos. He puts his head in his arms like her fourth grade class does when the teacher gets frustrated. The girl goes about rifling through the junk drawer because she remembers…

A woman rubs her right eye with the back of her wrist, listens to the engine hum and spit, and tries not to think about the empty passenger seat. The minivan headlights cut through the night as she accelerates on Interstate 81 South. Her boy sits in the back with a chapter book open in…

I watch my dead brother’s wrestling matches and try to count the number of times he gets hurt for real. In one, a wispy tattooed man hits him with a monitor from the commentary desk. In the rematch, he hits him with the commentary desk. I’ve got one of his boots on either side of…

When I am a little girl my dad takes me to church, and after Sunday school everyone drinks coffee and eats donut holes. I don’t want to talk to people, so my dad gives me his car keys, and I lay in the backseat with the radio turned to the country music station. Even in…