Currently viewing the category:
"Stories"
The woman leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘How was it getting away? …You look tired. Don’t worry, we’ll look after you.’ Here we go, Janet thought, sagging into her story. She stroked Terry’s hair, hoped he wasn’t listening. He seemed to be staring into space.
Excerpt from the novel, House Arrest, by Ellen Meeropol.
2010 Fiction Open: First Prize Not that Billyboy minds going to the store to buy Charleen her doughnuts and cigarettes, but being with the band is like walking a carnival midway, and that’s good for about one week out of the year. If he hadn’t started going with Charleen, Billy would be back home [...]
2010 Fiction Open: Second Prize When my mother was sick, before she died, I had this crazy urge to tell her about Wallace. I sat in the ICU waiting room, listening to Herbie Hancock on my Ipod and planned ways to bring up Wallace’s name. Maybe if she understood about him, she would understand [...]
2010 Fiction Open: Third Prize It was after midnight when Scott finished his front desk shift and met Alistair in the parking lot of the Sea View Hotel, where they both worked. Alistair was sitting on the hood of his convertible, smoking a cigarette, a mild breeze ruffling his blonde hair. “Where are we [...]
Holly’s bedroom was a treasure trove of excitement for a teenage girl. She had her own television, her own stereo, posters of all the hottest pop stars, and hundreds of records. Music was an arena where I shined – I knew all the words to all the latest pop songs. I knew the personal history of the musicians, knew all the gossip about them. This may not seem like a big deal now, but in those pre-People magazine, pre-TMZ days, being able to explain the complicated relationship between Patti Boyd, nee Harrison and Eric Clapton was an art.
It was all so long ago. In the Old Days. The days before the onset of the underground explosions that shook the earth. Before the thinning of the ozone layer. Before the suffocating heat and the floods. Before. When there were blue-tinged icebergs and calm, limpid lakes, when there was pack ice as far as the eye could see, ice so bright it almost hurt, ice extending far beyond the clean, clear horizon – when there were dangerous leopard seals and skua gulls and killer whales to escape – and mountains of snow to gambol on, and then slide down tummy-toboggan style.
Alexander and I have this tradition. Every few months or so, sometimes six, sometimes three, he rents a car and drives upstate three hours to my parent’s cabin at the top of the Catskill Mountains. The cabin has long since fallen out of use as a summer home for my family; my parents stay [...]
Emmett, the guy next door, is semi-autistic or something along that line. Maybe it’s mild mental retardation; I’m not sure. It’s not the kind of thing you ask about: “Hey, are you retarded?”
He is 24, 25, somewhere in there, chronologically. Mentally he is who knows what. Don’t get me wrong. He’s the nicest guy I have ever met, though the competition is not too heavy in that category, but he is out there somewhere and the rest of us can’t get there from here.
She used to like the Beatles, but now she holds her nose. She says, “Isn’t Nina lovely?” Her use of the word lovely slays me. I am rapt. I am undone. She is three years old and uttered the words, “Isn’t Nina lovely?” There has never been a more articulate, talented, cuter kid. I am willing to risk our daughter-in-law’s disapproval to nurture this child’s genius. “You want more Nina?”
