Askia would recount how, in her final delirium, his mother had kept on about the letters that Sidi Ben Sylla Mohammed, his father, was supposed to have sent from Paris. And some photos. Which he had never seen. But then one day he went off on the same route as the absent one.  He did not leave to find the missing father. He could live with gaps in his genealogy. He left because of a strange thing his mother had said: “For a long time we were on the road, my son. And wherever we went, people called us Dirty Feet. If you go away, you will understand. Why they called us Dirty Feet.” [Read more...]

dear mum

dont you worry a bowt me im doin ok n evry thin her is fin

i luv u

Jake [Read more...]

The garden had barely emerged from winter. At the foot of the cherry tree, whose white buds flecked with red were already on display, three delicate stalks of honeysuckle swayed in the breeze. She knelt, reached out, and cautiously stroked the soft stems. They left a pale blood in her hand, which she licked gingerly. [Read more...]

Even though I was pretty drunk because Palmer still remembered how to do things from way back during prohibition, even though all that, I couldn’t get myself to sleep that night I saw the crazy coyote. I just kept hearing her howling. And I’m used to hearing coyotes, of course, I like hearing them, I can even do a sound pretty much like one of them if you want to hear, but this coyote sound I kept hearing wasn’t like normal. It wasn’t a normal sound. So, maybe because I was drunk or maybe because I was scared I said to myself, bugger this, Herb, let’s take the rifle and find out what in hell is the problem. [Read more...]

Fred took a warm shower and, as he’d watched James do countless times, placed the metal hose that was attached to the showerhead inside him. He stood still until his stomach cramped. After emptying in the toilet, he crawled into bed, lay flat on his stomach and waited. When James arrived, he didn’t speak. He climbed into bed and with only a slick of saliva, penetrated without prelude. Fred bit into the pillow. [Read more...]

“She stands up in the tub, skinny legs shiny and dripping, straw-colored hair gathered in a lopsided topknot.  Rows of milk teeth meet in a slight overbite that will most likely become more noticeable as she gets older.

“Sit down,” says Anthony, pushing up the loose sleeves of his ratty grey sweatshirt. [Read more...]

Man and Wife exited the elevator in high sprits, their future freshly reinvigorated. She would host elaborate dinner parties, adopt for herself an outlandish pet name, and wear hats in the evening. His afternoons would be spent in the foyer doing whatever it was one did in a refurbished, high ceiling riverfront foyer. Children would wait. [Read more...]