Category Archives: Fiction

Dad was warm and affectionate and easy to be with, and he always seemed glad to me. It’s a bit jarring for me to hear how unhappy he then was. I can’t exactly argue about it, since he agrees with … Continue reading →

My mother swears my father used to be happy. She points at the old black-and-white photo on her picture wall, as evidence. She says they shot it about a year before I was born: probably in late 1975, right after … Continue reading →

Juley was frustrated by the Sunday School debate and irked about Aaron’s harassment by Keith and Steve. He felt protective toward his friend and he stopped being as cooperative at school and at home. He became difficult. He waxed disruptive … Continue reading →

Juley’s mother thought it was weird that he only wanted to eat, add and read when he came home from school. But he was happiest when she gave him columns of numbers to total or took him to the library … Continue reading →

Civil disobedience could have been Juley Brahnstein’s middle names. Should have been. He was born to rebel. He cut his second day of kindergarten. He found his own class insufficiently fun the first day, so on the next he followed … Continue reading →

“Sure. My kid sister’s sixteen. My boyfriend is nineteen. You’re talking ‘bout my generation.” Laura keeps her hand on Sharon’s shoulder while she says this, grinning and transforming herself from naiad to LA-child-of-perpetual-sun. She might as well be freckled, she’s … Continue reading →

“Maybe I’ll buy her one of those beaded bracelets,” Sharon says. “They seemed to have some good ones at the Mercado. Jessica’s built like Neil you know.” She pauses with her chin down, looking up through her bangs. “Big boned,” … Continue reading →

Such a pretty face. Or it would be, if only she’d remember to… Or it used to be, before she took to… The truth is, the face is aging. The skin is beginning to sag on the skull. She props … Continue reading →

I kept noticing the hair. In the front of the room around the semi-circular dais were eight council members and the mayor: all gray. The three men were lucky to have hair, for like their colleagues they were born in … Continue reading →

So my group wants to build teacher-only affordable rental housing. In the old Urban Safari store site, near the high school and the transit center. But “teachers-only” is too discriminatory for federal funds and maybe even for money from the … Continue reading →