We’d come to see the last of the Mermaids, called it a conservation trip but really we were just there to gawk. And point. Stand in the background of a CNN reporter’s camera and wave to our friends back home who had thought we were cruel to come so far just for a sideshow. Continue reading
Brad was an explorer born six centuries too late. He’d known this from childhood, staging naval battles in the bathtub. Trading pinecones and beads with his action figures. But at forty-six there were no new worlds to conquer, save the mysterious space where paper jammed in the office copier. So Brad set out in his dingy boat, looking for a land to call his own. Continue reading
That earthy, peaty smell like so many earthworms’ private fantasies richened the air that morning. The world was keeping secrets, and Jørgen was set on discovery. He sharpened his tools, mended his bag, and looked up the hill. The sun was high by now. He groaned.
Thirty steps to the river. Twenty-nine back to the scrub brush. I pull myself by the limbs, up into the canopy.
Eight weeks since the bombs fell and I ran. I ran. I ran. The water runs here, too. There’s safety in likeness, so I thought. Continue reading
“Sorry.” Her fingers grazed my back. I’d forgotten that feeling, like kittens climbing your spine and curling in your throat. Warm and matted and mewling. Disgusting, if you think about it. Who thinks about it at the time? Kittens in your throat. That’s gross. Continue reading
Where the wind blew pine needles across the roof. Scritch, scritch.
I didn’t know it would be this long.
I never would’ve let the dog out.
Never would’ve kissed you under the wolf moon. They say it’s cursed. Now we know.
Scritch. Continue reading
Francis squinted until it looked like his toes were walking across the mud brown river, instead of swinging midair from the academy windowsill. That way his kicks could carve waves, bashing the cherry-red ferry tours against each other like toys in the bathtub.
The dorm attendant dawdled past his open door. “They just rang. I’m sorry, Francis.”
Every hoofbeat churned the smooth-washed beach. Here along the inlet was the only place to spy incoming ships. Lee and Finn had raced them to the harbor since they were young.
But there’d been no ships. Not lately. And the men were no longer young. Still Lee noticed Finn pushed faster along this stretch. No longer a race. A retreat.
The Wordsy 
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