Sunday Stories will resume on January 6, 2013. For now, please enjoy some highlights from the year. Visit our Sunday Stories page for more.
Astrid calculates the path that would get her out of here. Three miles to the rental car, on a path she’d been led in on blindfolded, and Jennifer has the keys. She removes her clothing and sits there. She says Fuck; says it again; it feels phenomenal to say fuck in a place where people say “journey” more often than “hello.”
– Kathleen Alcott, “Closer and Closer to Water”
HOLOGRAM CHE GUEVERA, CRYING LIKE THE INDIAN FROM THOSE OLD-TIMEY LITTERING COMMERCIALS WHILE WALKING AROUND WILLIAMSBURG.
HOLOGRAM STANLEY KUBRICK, SITTING ATOP YOUR DRESSER AND WHISPERING INSTRUCTIONS AS YOU MAKE LOVE TO YOUR NEIGHBOR.
– Sean H. Doyle, “100 Holograms”
There are other women, of course, and she watches the other women with a detached interest. The other women work so hard to garner the man’s attention. They work even harder to hold it. They try different tactics: ape the man’s most self-destructive behaviors. They take drugs nick-named after girls, the same drugs middle-aged pop stars reference at music festivals and in songs.
– Elizabeth Ellen, “The Only Thing Required of Me Now Is My Own Indifference”
Stephen Malkmus is standing on my front lawn. This shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s common knowledge that Stephen Malkmus lives in the neighborhood. He plays softball against people I know. One of my friends toured Europe in support of him. In the two plus years since I moved back to Portland, I’ve seen him at Whole Foods, Laurelhurst Park, and only once—only once—on stage. He’s the sort of guy who has no problem slouching around in public.
– Michael Heald, “Goodbye to the Nervous Apprehension”
Gripping it in the middle, she had squeezed, white paste presenting itself; she held a finger to it and placed the discharge in her mouth. Lee watched the whole process. The squeezing, the white being dispelled, the opening of her wide lips and it disappearing inside. Then he said “Don’t do that. It’s one of my things. Squeezing the toothpaste from the middle. It ruins the tube.” She looked at him blank for a moment. Maybe not blank.
– Jennifer Sky, “Things You Can Do With Toothpaste”
The boy likes presidents so we named all of our rooms after the fat ones. While the Cleveland Suite isn’t as big as the Taft Room, it’s the quietest. If I would actually get around to trimming the dogwood out back, the room would have a great view of the river.
– John Jodzio, “Great Alcoholic-Owned Bed and Breakfasts of the Eastern Seaboard”
Though obviously tongue-in-cheek, the accomplishment is no less astounding or profound; that ghosts are not real serves only to make more amazing the police department’s success in eradicating them. That is, it ought to be impossible to do anything at all to non-existent entities, such as ghosts, yet the officers still managed to usher them, i.e. nothing, out the city gates with authority. Have you ever tried to remove a nagging emptiness from your life? – the task is more arduous than its imperceptible weight would imply.
– Dolan Morgan, “There Are Places in New York City That Do Not Exist”
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