Stories tagged magic-realism

Creatures: A Memoir

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Now I was not born Víola Cesario. I was not born. I had no name. I was not a person to be named. Not a person at all. They say you cannot serve two masters. I served two people, Jimmy and Edith, son and mother. They needed me, so I became. Everything…

The Accordion

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If I play my accordion too loudly while you're painting, you complain. You stamp about in your room under mine. You fetch the broom from the closet and use it to thump vehemently on the ceiling. I feel the vibrations through my feet.

Magnificent Pigs

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I retrieved the book from the middle of the room and set it in front of her. "Look," I said. "If we open the book up again at the beginning, Charlotte's alive. She'll always be alive in the book."

On High

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“Yes, well, this sometimes happens early,” Dr. Yartz said. “Before death, I mean. You understand.” Brian frowned and narrowed his eyes as the doctor bound the raw, red wounds at the base of his newly sprouted wings. At the moment they were…

Intolerable Impositions

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"She gnawed her arm off in the morning, before he woke...."

Summer Flip Flops

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Sal, a finder of misplaced objects notices the sunglasses, flip flops and boxers left on the pathway heading to the beach. They are his gifts today, so gallant is he of these ‘strays’ seeking ownership. He tries the glasses on first and feels dizzy.

My Boss Has an Atomic Clock

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She is the clock warden and someone's late again. Two minutes or eight it's argued. Tick,tock, tick, tock. “They're always behind, ” she yells, “or rather behind something. “No, this can't be,” she screams, knots form on her forehead. The blue…

A Night in the Canyon With Young Woman and Rooster

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The scent that drifted through the canyon most nights seeped early through his open window. He pressed his face to the screen. A young woman sat on the patch of crabgrass beside his vegetable garden and fed apple slices to a rooster standing between her legs. In her other…

Dakota

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I am warming up the Hotel Hugo courtesy shuttle van when Victor the front desk manager comes striding out waving his arms asking me why I haven't backed up yet. Victor says I'm always in my own world when I should be paying attention to the work at hand,

Bad Dad

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When they were seven, he’d taken them out to the desert and let them shoot a .38 at rusted cans. The explosions rocked them back on their heels.

Insect Eater

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Wax Lips Opiates

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The Syringimals were filled to their 60 ml capacity with a gelatinous ocher blood. They fluttered around using sparkly wings stolen from Disney fairies, and attempted language through wax lips that were usually secured with scotch tape.

Somnambulist

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Although still uncertain of whether she was a she fish or a he fish (she definitely hated being an it fish), the fish liked what she saw of Nags Head. Finally, a world that gave her a choice. And felt no need to verify whether she was a real she fish, or just a he fish…

Round Women

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The women were large as human snails and round as moons. They rolled in and asked my husband for some money. He did not know them but I had a feeling he would be nice to them, they were women, and they had breasts. Between the two round women, and myself, there were…

Stillness

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You were sitting on dark leather meringue, wearing slit ivy, epilated thighs sliding through, roots showing beneath your anaemic skin, fighting with the pale bluegreen of your veins. Quills extended from your left hand, bent about 10.2 degrees or so.