Where the Yazoo Cross the Yellow Dog
Jimbo Palmer and Rob Forde were both fourteen, with Jimbo some months older than Rob. Jimbo’s mother was warm and friendly but ineffectual. She remonstrated by saying in a trailing-off …
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Mr. Penny’s Seventh
They’re tedious places, hospitals. Mr. Penny didn’t have many hobbies (Walking. Reading. There was something else.) and he couldn’t do any of those at present, not without his glasses, or …
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The Blacksmith
Hipolito the blacksmith is moved by the drama of Tomás’s twelve afflicted horses and goes into tender, lengthy details about how the lice powder should be mixed with warm water, …
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Chembera Bridge
There is nothing west of Gwanda. It is empty Matabeleland. But I turn my toe to that nothing. And I go. * A man is a terrapin—so my father says. …
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The Charrington Copter
A letter came in the mail. I hadn’t received a letter . . . Not for years and years. “I read your story Trinity Times Three on the internet. I think it’s one …
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The Shomer and the Boreal Owl
Ephraim kobre realized that he wanted to fuck wild things at the age of forty-two. Out for a stroll one evening in late August, he spotted a white-tailed fawn nibbling …
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Sweet Jimmy
Hollywood Forever Cemetery was the last quiet place in LA. Once. A hundred people were crowded around a grave. Laying flowers on it, sobbing. An old lady wearing a bandana …
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Adventures with Writers
What I admire about writers is their terror. “What are you so terrified of? ” I asked Gordon (a writer). “The world is terrifying,” he said. “Could you be more specific? ” …
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Mr. Penny Sees Red
It had been quite a day for Mr. Penny. First he’d been struck by that—was it a van, or an ambulance? The ambulance came after. Yes, he was certain of …
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