Days and days pass after Papa's car accident, and night after night Xav hears his mother's purposeful walk out past the closet door and Mara's room to the fire escape. She always goes at the same time--after Papa has fallen asleep and Vovo has come and gone for her last cup of coffee--and always returns before the moon has set behind the high ( Read more... )

Sanya killed them all. The petunias, the impatients, the short, hardy marigolds. The snapdragons snapped in half. The aloe dried out. She would have murdered the hydrangeas too, probably, had not her mother eventually intervened, unable to see a perfectly healthy garden go to waste.

It wasn't that she was doing anything wrong, exactly. It ( Read more... )

They watch their footsteps in fascination as, crashing through puddle after puddle, tiny gray tsunamis wash the pebbles and grass out in circles from their Wellington boots. It is 1992. Sariya still has dark hair, bobbed neatly around her chin underneath her pale blue rain coat ( Read more... )

What does it mean, anyway? She asks ( Read more... )

Was supposed to be a 15 minute challenge that just run off with itself. Title does not effectively reflect the madness within. Or does it?

( we'll make you right as rain )

The first time he watches her take off her clothes, he contemplates her figure with uncertainty. It's a compilation of little surprises that surprise even him. For one thing, her nipples are pink, which, given her complexion, he should have known. But in his mind, he had pictured them rosy and dark, like American Beauties. There are freckles on ( Read more... )

A little unconventional, maybe, is the most she will admit to calling it. This answer seems to satisfy all parties involved except Aeneas, who could not let the subject die ( Read more... )

Totally wrote a story with the same premise before. Shhhhhhhh...

( but if you've known love like the jokers before )

( there's a low moon caught in your tangles )

More like 20 Minute Challenge, but never mind.

( long lost fables )