While still in diapers, a boy gets his first erection. Lying on the changing table, he stares into his mother’s loving eyes, feels the gentle caress of the wet nap against his soiled bottom, and grows erect. Most mothers must laugh at the absurdity of these little boners, at the pure egotism of the tiny [...]
Yearly Archives: 2005
Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? by Ayun Halliday
an excerpt from ‘Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Down-Market Dilettante’ by Ayun Halliday The assistant manager left us alone to get dressed in a store room. “Don’t dawdle though. Doors open at nine and some of those people have been waiting since seven.” Nate and I knelt to unzip the footlocker-sized bags that [...]
Speaking of Love by Angela Young
An excerpt by Angela Young Part One, Thursday: Iris’s Story I have come home, after a long and difficult journey. I am at a storytelling festival but it isn’t the place, the mediaeval castle with its tiered lawns or the gloriously striped storytelling tents down on the jousting field that speak to me of home. [...]
Something Hidden by Elaine Margolis
by Elaine Margolis The mime, dressed in black, a shawl across one shoulder, a dark lens on one eye, moved his head from side to side as he adjusted his cuffs, holding the crowd, holding me, keeping us inside the space of, not letting us escape from, his unseeing single-eyed stare. A tape player filled [...]
Partners (an excerpt) by N.D. Wheeler
by N.D. Wheeler I fancied myself an artist; he wanted to be a writer. I took photographs, later picking them up from the developer with anticipation and surprise, always surprise, as though someone else had taken the pictures and I didn’t know what to expect.
Lunch With the Indians by W. A. Smith
By W. A. Smith Foster is drawing a picture of a very tall lavender man in a cowboy hat. Deeper lavender trees grow near the man, barely reach his waist. Foster chooses an equally deep green for the giant’s hands, and without raising his eyes from his creation he asks his mother how old his [...]
The Color of Boulders by Julie Ann Shapiro
by Julie Ann Shapiro I wake up sweating. It’s the same dream. Smooth flat surface, late afternoon shadows. A sloping valley, two pebbles. Boulders the color of sand; a giant hand caresses the boulders. Late afternoon shadows and the boulders turn to granite. I smell garlic, kick off the covers; fists clenched.
Christmas by Paula J. Lambert
Paula J. Lambert Delia wasn’t sure Frank loved her and now that she might be pregnant, that seemed like a problem. She sat naked on the edge of the tub with her knees together and her bare feet spread, the EPT box on the floor beside her. At 39, she was too old for this [...]
The Birdbath by W.A. Smith
by W.A. Smith “What bothers the hell out of me, like nothing else, is when I start singing a song’in the shower or something, or while I’m getting dressed’and you start singing it too.” The man paused and shifted the gun to his left hand so he could lift the coffee cup with his right. [...]
The Fear of Going Missing by Matthew Haynes
by Matthew Haynes On a Saturday morning, about noon, when I have risen from a gin sleep, questing the house for coffee, taking my place in the line outside the bathroom door, gripping my thighs, remarking at the delight of visiting home, curious at turning twenty-seven, my father tells me to pee in the backyard [...]