Short Stories

The House Collapses

On the ferry Håkan asked me to take off my boot and sock and roll up the cuff of my pants. He took an elastic bandage out of the first aid kit. Then he stroked my ankle in a way that made me want to cry. He bent down and licked the skin around the bone. I thought about how the seats in the car were made of leather, how we were sitting on the skin of something that had once lived and defended itself.

Read the whole story at The Brooklyn Rail

Hedgehogs

She stopped at the bakery: the cashier’s fingers were quite sexy, not like the pharmacist’s but really very nice, and she imagined them too working away in her vagina, wrapping up a small parcel. Next came the florist. He snipped the peonies with his shears and explained how she ought to cut the stalks at an angle so that the water might fully penetrate the stem.

Read the whole story at The Guardian

Mesopotamia

They were often invited to dinner by more powerful colleagues, people with connections, and made sure to return the invitations. As soon as the guests were gone, they would snicker about the cheap wine someone had brought, or how someone else ate with his mouth open. Then, pleased with themselves, they would go into the kitchen and load the dishwasher together.

Read the whole story at RTE

Deer in the Woods

“You therefore ought to put some thought into what happiness means to you,” the German said turning towards me, ”Deer in the woods? Or deer on the plate?”

I dropped my knife and fork. The German started laughing, and urged me to continue eating. His wife told me to ignore his odd sense of humor, but it was too late. In my mind’s eye I saw the butchered deer shake off the pears, magically join together their sundered parts, and come back to life.

Read the whole story at PEN magazine

Father with Dog

I ran into my father near Potsdamer Platz three years after his death. I was on my way to the library in the Kulturforum.

Read the whole story at Catapult

Light

That kind of thing happens to us often. One of us will get sick and call the other to tell her about her symptoms, the doctor’s appointments, the tests. A few days later, whichever one of us was healthy has fallen ill, too. Years ago my sister developed a kidney stone. Then I got one, too. When they opened us up, they found a stone in each of our right kidneys, as big as a dried-up umbilical cord. 

Read the whole story at Words Without Borders

Woman In Tree

Just yesterday a man spat on the sidewalk at her feet to show her how much he detested her. Marianna tried to keep in mind that people saw her as a symbol, not a person.

Read the whole story at Words Without Borders

The Four Hundred Pleats

By the end of my studies I was acting like a true Brit. I ate baked beans for breakfast and every Saturday would go to Harrods’s and buy some small, useless object. The olives I had bought in a fit of nostalgia rotted in their glass jar in the dorm’s refrigerator, behind a label that read Authentic Greek Olives.

Read the whole story at Belletrista

The Way You Might Break A Finger

They’re still looking for Goldfinger. In the last six months he has cut off seventeen musicians’ index fingers. Three a month.

Read the whole story at Words Without Borders

Three short stories from Baroque, an auto-fiction novel (2018)

On February 24, 1981, at almost 11, our girl had pushed the door closed, pretending to be asleep. Under the white knit blanket she had lifted her nightgown.

Read the stories at The Brooklyn Rail