Fiction

For me, there’s so much comfort and joy in just knowing the names of all the critters and the wildflowers, knowing that we are just part of this amazing world of dragon flies and butterflies and sounds and smells and the way the seasons change and that we’re all part of it too—

Outwardly, it was impossible that Marianne could be responsible for my current predicament, in fact she had been nothing but supportive and encouraging. Yet I had the horrible suspicion that she contained a hidden, inner self that I was not privy to.

She called every Holocaust Memorial in New England to ask if they would sell her a Jude patch. They all thanked her for her enthusiasm and respectfully declined.

Digger quietly cleaned up the torn dirt, replaced bits of bone as he could and buried others, telling no one of his actions or the causes. He had come into the habit of wandering the graveyard in the evening, listening for the scraping sound of tooth on bone.

“The old man winces in discomfort as the false narrative of economic growth washes over him,” she says. “But he shakes off the attack and summons the deeper beasts of his resolve.”

Lewis could feel the heat from Brady’s body. “Listen, if you want, I can try to get you some, but this isn’t something that you fuck around with, right? This is something that you have to go into with your eyes open.”

That's what the pandemic viral desperados did to us, a chance to cry like never before longer besides sending us six feet under. It emptied our shared vanity, singling our lachrymose ducts, victims in our own ceremonies, and uncompromisingly masked for keeps.

I look at Bernardo, trying to figure out if he’s seeing the old gringo too, and reassure me that he’s not a figment of my imagination. But my brother is frozen to the ground like an ice statue.

My life’s course—my separation from most people, my extinguished hopes, the accumulation of final betrayals—seems almost preordained by the place where I first drew breath...

Graffiti magically appeared on the walls of the federal detention center: "FUCK ICE" and "DEATH TO ICE" and "FUCK DONALD TRUMP" but also farewell messages like "LOVE YOU DADDY."