—Kathy, please prepare the cabin for takeoff.
—You already said that, sir. Sir? Brian?
—Is the cabin prepared?
—We’re airborne, sir.
—I’d like to hear that from Troy, please.
—We’re airborne, sir.
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I’m not ready to leave the box. The times I’ve tried were disasters. I thought I was the lucky one with a place of my own, raised as I was, hugged by walls, but my sisters had an easier time leaving home. I wonder now what living this way has prepared me for. Read the rest of this entry »
One thing for sure, Uncle V’s business—as business, now—was as money as a business can be. Its revenues were pure profit and customers killed one another to give him his fees. He expended no effort to provide his service; Read the rest of this entry »
I promised my daughter my heart, forgetting it wasn’t mine. You were there, fat with her, already weary of the burden and beautiful, intolerably beautiful. You made demands: a hairbrush, a mirror, not that hairbrush, ice yes but not ice chips, a delivery date— Read the rest of this entry »
Here we let the children tell whatever stories serve their needs. We were surprised, though, when they started a church. We had thought, naively it seems, there were enough religions, but they were all founded on faith and suddenly, empty chapels are easy to come by. Read the rest of this entry »
This godforsaken gravel shoulder is as good a place—as bad a place—as any to have made your peace with life and dying. Still, you probably objected. Not here, you said, by which you meant, Not yet. Read the rest of this entry »
The next day, I understood French. Standing by the curb in my bathrobe and slippers on a frosty morning, looking for the paper in the shrubs, I saw the sparkling blades of grass and heard the crystals crunch beneath my feet in a suburb of a suburb of New York City—all right, Jersey— Read the rest of this entry »
Summer camp for boys had been a nightmare of fellowship and other itchy rashes. For weeks, he had tried to find somebody he could like or a hiding place, but they had pestered him with bows and arrows, canoes and climbing ropes. The ropes he liked. Read the rest of this entry »
When the night voices tremble in your heart, so do you hear where each of us is, except for me, except for the one who doesn’t call. Your bed is damp with not knowing. Left to the black glass and right to your husband, you shake your head No all night. Read the rest of this entry »
I saw him surfing traffic in the city and knew nobody was looking out for him. The boulevard at rush hour was impassible. Nobody who wasn’t being chased by a maniac with a chainsaw would have tried to cross it on foot, yet he was running with the cars, Read the rest of this entry »
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