We are quarreling again, he said. How are we doing that, I asked, when we are not even speaking? This is a quarrel, he insisted. This is silly, I said. Honey, I added and surprised myself. I have refrained from…

I heard on the news today that ‘viewership’ on MSNBC is down 47% since the recent election. I don’t know if that is accurate, or if anything they say is completely accurate. I know that my husband and I used…

The vastnesses of the ocean lay splayed out in front of her, a seamless, slowly undulating flat plate of gray. The color flashing in her mind, stabbing her, immediately excavating images she'd thought lost and gone. A leviathan of memory,…

That old thing about God having given us two ears and only one mouth? A silent instruction, by so doing, that we should listen more than talk? That relative to filling the air waves with noise and words words words,…

My little brother was 8 years younger than me. He was everybody's favorite beyond me and my sister. "Use a frog." he said in a French Canadian accent. "What?" I said. "Use a frog!. You catch a frog and cut…

[Scene: Barren, post-apocalyptic landscape, a la the toxic waste zone where the Unwomen in Handmaid's Tale labor. Two women are on break and speak from behind military gas masks] [Woman 1] How are you? [Woman 2] I'm doing well. Wonderful,…

He became silent. Initially I thought it was a weapon, that silence. The silence occurred when we disagreed on something. Sometimes, when I decided that I wanted the inexpensive chair – the one he regarded as “cheap,” (he disapproved of…

Alexander sat on the mangled remains of the stolen carriage and listened to the silence. At least the quarrel would be ended, though he desperately wished he had been wrong. Just ahead, Natalia's black silhouette, radiant against the setting sun,…

I'm everywhere. I am a regular fixture on the business networking circuit, a recurring character in meetings featuring nametags, taglines, and free bagels. I am a hub: Need a business lawyer in Houston, Texas? I know two great ones. An…

It's January, the first month of the year. The anniversary of your death is approaching, the anniversary of your birth several weeks after that. The thing about the circumstances -- your chance encounter with another father, younger by some forty…

I didn’t get a chance to put Christmas decorations up this year. I didn’t even bring the stockings my mom made over 65 years ago down like I usually would. I planned to do it all last week. But it…

Jo liked to think Ah Ma went to heaven, but Auntie Susan said Ah Ma cursed too much and cheated in mahjong. But Ah Ma fed stray cats leftover food from the kitchen, Jo argued. That conversation took place a…