Stories

Death.

It came one evening when everyone else was sleeping. It crawled in the dark outside, hissing along the night winds that were shaking leaves and branches

The little boy could hardly keep his eyes open. He lay on his Uncle’s lap during the subway ride home. He always liked resting his head on his lap; it was safe there. He looked up at the ceiling of the train and stared at its empty space.

“It came out positive.”

“You’re kidding!”

It would seem so. The news was surprising to Ruth because Sandra was old. Not Betty White old, but easily old enough to be Ruth’s mom.

Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years.

Invisible boundaries. The gum lines of aggressive brushers. Chins, if you’re a Hapsburg. The stamped fingerprints of once white shoes. Synthetic beards on aging tires, eroding like rootless rubber hillsides. Reflections of home in the rearview window. Oil on a hot pan, a screaming, droplet army retreating in disarray.

She ran away from home, and Pastor Bruce was dismayed after talking with her mother. Her mother said she’d been sullen for the last month or so, and even the school nurse called once. Her daughter wouldn’t tell her what was wrong, and she asked Pastor Bruce