Category: Fiction

My grandmother had a Bakelite Philco radio, model 48-250, brown with gold numerals on the dial. Its five tubes received the AM band and operated on 115 volts. I remember little about her, just that she wore black dresses with small white polka dots, pu … Continue Reading

Mid November in the January Hills, hunting ends at sundown. Shotgun season for deer wouldn’t begin for another two weeks, the shortest days and darkest nights of early December. Valerie and Jim drove their mismatched, rowdy pack of dogs into the hills … Continue Reading

“I need a good book.” Mary Jane Russell stared at the graying part at the top of her mother’s head, a dull line between the tightly permed blonde curls on the rest of her head. They were in Betty Russell’s dining room having their Friday night tuna, eg … Continue Reading

[OLD MAN, SON I and SON II are gathered in a kitchen, which is sparsely decorated and drab. In the middle of the room is a small kitchen table with three chairs, and in the corner, a grey refrigerator and a white stove. There is one window over the sin … Continue Reading

This was his fifth day working on the front line of the Colorado wildfire; the smoke and heat tearing through his chest had begun to wear on him. He coughed as he reached for his bandanna, which had slid down his face and was no longer covering his nos … Continue Reading

The boy is burning in the front seat of the pickup. The sun feels too close to the earth, and the heat rises like gasoline fumes from the rust-colored hood—the kind of heat that keeps the birds from singing and makes the gun dogs dig ditches in the yar … Continue Reading