Midday finds her in front of the stove, frying two eggs in butter. Even with the windows open in the kitchen, it’s hot enough to justify idleness, not that she believes she requires any justification. She’s been reveling in childhood pleasures all morning: full glasses of milk, improvised calisthenics on the balcony, handfuls of chocolate-filled [...]
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On Wednesday the babies of Petrichor disappeared from three thousand four hundred seventy-two collective wombs. Fifty-four gynecologists told three thousand four hundred seventy-two women that, within forty-eight hours of each other, their fetuses had vanished completely and absolutely selfishly, without even a bloody stain to mark the divorce of organisms. The fetuses had ranged in age [...]
“This is an Ivory Tower exercise,” she says, tying a bow with the drawstrings of his pants. He’s not sure what she’s referring to, or even what she means exactly. Guess that English degree was useless after all, he thinks, which is perhaps not the correct post-coital sentiment.
When she comes home, Etta’s mother spends five minutes organizing the shoes in the closet according to owner and frequency of use. She watches Channel Five news on the sofa for half an hour, drinking a quarter gallon of water with her 200 milligrams of bifidus bacteria. As soon as the infomercials come on, she [...]
After each tenant leaves, Mr. Tomofumi does a thorough check of the apartment. He brings a plastic pail filled with cleaning equipment, a radio-cassette and a mix tape up three flights of stairs. To the tune of “Michelle”, Mr. Tomofumi spreads out the curtains and airs out the mattresses. By the time Elgar’s violin sonata [...]
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We, nimble fingered, smelling of bay leaf and soapstone. We, ignoring the space where Pangaea breathes into Panthalassa, sea-sky becoming indistinguishable, bred into confusion and birds cooing upside-down. Cutting hair with dirty kitchen scissors. Taking bikes and going and going, not really wondering when we should turn back. I wrote you an opera once, a [...]