Rolando had already trimmed the bottlebrush, the strawberry blossoms like a cylindrical hairbrush. Honeybees, bumblebees, and yellowjackets assaulted the blossoms, and made his job difficult and dangerous. The yellow jackets would not be scattered or shaken off. They stayed, waiting for an opening. Whenever he worked against yellowjackets, something bad would happen. Rolando hated the mesh draped from his baseball cap to prevent the yellowjackets and bees from stinging his

New Orleans, April 2, 1848   Tendrils of morning fog drifted through the live oaks of St. Anthony’s Garden. Nestled behind St. Louis Cathedral's towering spires, the garden was an Old World masterpiece transplanted to the New World. Brick pathways formed a cross that met at a gurgling fountain filled with water lilies. Manicured hedges of boxwood created intimate alcoves. Magnolia trees joined the oaks overhead, their white blossoms hanging like faint ornaments in the pre-daw

1 He had not been to church since he was a kid. He had not crossed the threshold and entered sacred ground, where Jesus watched from golden crosses and the Virgin Mary lingered in the air, providing hope to the weary and the lost. When he sat down and closed his eyes, he was unaware of Reverend Mulls’ presence. He simply shut his eyes and prayed.He prayed for forgiveness. Reverend Mulls tapped him on the shoulder midway through his fifth repeated prayer. He opened his eyes

I was born wall-eyed! Well, for those of you who don’t know, wall-eyed is the opposite of being crossed-eyed.  I needed three operations to fix my eyes. I can still remember the third operation quite clearly. It happened right after my father’s construction company folded.   Since Father or Mother weren’t bringing in a paycheck, I became an “indigent” case.   Before Father had lost his company, he’d been able to afford one of the best doctors in the country and this doctor h

That Monday was the worst day of Christina’s life. The rebel inside her felt it might actually be the best, but the rest of her didn’t see it that way. It started when her manager summoned her into his office. The time was a couple of minutes to nine. She’d barely had a moment to take off her spring jacket, the last birthday present from Justin before they’d stopped giving each other presents. “I have to let you go,” her manager told her matter-of-factly, his steely eye

As she dressed for church, Nikki studied her reflection in the mirror and imagined cutting all her hair off, smearing her face with lipstick, and bashing her head against the glass until it broke. She opened the vanity drawer. Inside she stared at a pair of scissors. Her hand floated over them before she closed the drawer and finished applying the rest of her makeup. A lapsed Catholic, she rarely went to church anymore. She never went anywhere  except work. Every day she w

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated. -- Terry Tempest Williams I dreamed about prison again. I hate dreaming about prison. The last time I dreamed of prison I woke up and immediately started crying. In the dream, I was sentenced for years and I would only be able to see my

Safe Landing , by Michael Braswell      The harvest that grew in the loamy soil in the county of Suffolk would have to wait after the Americans arrived.  Crushed stones from broken pieces of London transformed wheat fields and vegetable gardens into runways where instruments of survival and retribution descended in droves. In short order, farm fields became airfields, home to B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators complements of the United States Eighth Air Force.    The

In a chemistry classroom somewhere along the Gulf Coast, students struggle to complete a laboratory experiment involving colorful liquids in glass test tubes while their teacher looks on. A mounted television monitor is tuned to the weather channel. The sound is muted, but it’s clear from the map that a major hurricane is headed towards the city.   *   Stiltski (“it’s Polish,” he tells everyone, even though he is clearly not of Polish descent), the smallest boy from the chemi

He began drumming the fingers of his right hand lightly against the tumbler, its cut glass cooled by the ice and what remained of the bourbon. It was an aimless rhythm that signified nothing save his apprehension. He ground out the butt of one cigarette and shook another from the half-empty pack on the polished mahogany bar, snapped open his silver lighter and put flame to tobacco, drawing deeply. Nearly ten years he’d gone without nicotine. Then came the prospect of seeing h

Frank Sutton’s fifteen-year-old cat seemed to enjoy rousting him   from sleep only on Saturdays when he had the day off and could stay in bed an extra hour. Today was no exception. Fully awake, he shooed the beast from his chest with a muttered curse and dressed quickly – khakis and a starched button-down with an ink stain on the pocket. He was thinking of leaf-filled gutters, bacon and eggs, the divorce Cheryl had threatened last week right after church, for no good reason.

It came silently in the night but not without warning. And now she marveled at how quickly and completely the interloper had overtaken the landscape. The intruder’s blanket of white was indeed quite a sight. But how such beauty could cause so much angst for her she deemed bitterly ironic. Her teenage children were ecstatic that their school had closed due to the winter storm. But she had no reason to celebrate. She’d be expected to work, albeit from home, while her offspring

James arrived at the synagogue early. Almost fifteen years had passed since he'd last been here. It hadn't changed, a stark structure of old brick with no adornments of any kind. In the cool morning air the sounds of his leather shoes were sharp on the stone steps. The sun was bright, the day brisk. He took a deep breath, barely invigorated by the cold rush that filled his lungs, and opened the heavy wooden door. Exhaustion wrapped his body like an old blanket. Too many

Dr. Benoit was only a bit saner than his patients. Volunteering on Christmas Eve felt rash to his office partners, but the veteran psychiatrist insisted. He’d received an emergency call from a healthcare protection officer at noon, and by twelve-thirty, Dr. Benoit drove his compact car five hours downstate through hoary weather, listening to past recordings from the involuntary psychiatric wing’s most precarious patients including… her . When he arrived at Gray Ridge Hospital

To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.48.   I sat at my favorite spot on the porch one spring morning, watching the sun paint golden stripes on the trees and amusing myself with the chattering of the wild birds as they fought for seeds from the feeder. Suddenly, I was assaulted by a disquieting thought: how many

My machine works. I input a time and I’m taken there, as the time is now, all abandoned set pieces where the actors have since moved on. Everything continues in the present because that’s where the people are. I came here, twenty years in the past, intending to change it—and of course the present by proxy. But I’m still bleeding out, carrying the present’s fatal wound, and now that I’m here I’m content observing the suspended state of my youth. Or maybe I just want to be. Eve

Dust danced between the sunbeams shining through the front window of the old shop. The smell of lavender and mildew drifted through the small space, which was filled with a maze of bookshelves, many of them pressed at odd angles against each other. The individual shelves were organized in a similar manner, each decorated with random objects—books, jewelry, herbs, vials, clocks—all ranging from magical to ordinary.   Lena had spotted the shop as she roamed the cobblestone st

(Dedicated to Tony Morris)   As a man sow, shall he reap. – Bob Marley   You’ve heard the warning. Don't try this at home. Here's another one for the list. Detoxing from alcohol. I already knew that, having endured it enough times to prove every theory of alcoholic insanity. But here I was again, 2:00 a.m., alone in bed. My longtime girlfriend, LeAnne, had deserted months earlier, weary of my lurching trip along the bottom. “Don’t call me,” was her parting salvo, “until you

It’s Thanksgiving at Auntie and Uncle’s house. Let’s all go around the table and say what we’re thankful for.  I’m on the periphery of a family group—the poor relation in more ways than one. “The wine,” I say when it’s my turn, and I mean it.  I’m thinking, when and where and how can I get some more of this here Balm of Gilead. I’m thinking, whatever it takes. Friday nights it’s all the same, week in week out.  Get depressed and fed up at home.  Might as well be a piece of f

“That’s right, Daddy’s lost.” Arthur pushed Lori along in her stroller. “Lost.” He flapped his hands out to either side of his body as he emphasized the first consonant sound of the word “L-l-l-lost.” “Where are we?” he crowed, then tickled his daughter’s nose, repeating his query twice, each time speaking in a more elevated sing-song, “Where are we? Where are weeee?” The baby giggled and cooed. She answered with a long happy babble, even offering up a few rewarding “da