fiction
-
The heat came early in the morning from nowhere, and by the afternoon it was pressing down on all sides. The first day of summer, I called it. Roddy said it was just a phantom. We closed the curtains and sat around without clothes. My back was slick with sweat, and the backs of my…
-
I put my book on the sand, lay back, and looked up at the clouds sliding across the sky. At the edges, they swirled like ink in water. After a while, these movements began to have an unsettling effect on me. I felt as if gravity might suddenly fail; that the earth would lose its…
-
In the end, you do some laundry. You sit outside on the battered chair and watch as the washing dries on the line. While you watch, you smoke cigarettes, and drink coffee. You flick ash on the ground. You remember how you used to drink your coffee black and long because that’s how they drank…
-
She said she was bored. Then she shot upright and said that I should paint her. I was cool to the idea, at first, coming out of the blue like that. But as she talked about it, I began to see that it might be quite interesting. She was going to undress, and drape herself on the…
-
Handstands man wandered into the kitchen earlier, opening all the cupboards like he owns the place, looking for strong liquor. Jodie didn’t say anything. She melts for a tight body. He’s a bit thin for her, maybe, but I could tell she likes him. He doesn’t shave or sculpt his pubes, and he’s milky-skinned with…
Barry Lee Thompson 