altilde

Johan takes the old lit books out of his bag one by one and throws them at me. I bat aside a well-worn copy of Frankenstein, and then ask him why he still has it in his bag in March. For an answer, he throws Oryx and Crake at my head.Once the lit books have been exhausted, he takes out rainforests of paper and the cover of a sketchbook he messed around with last year. He takes out broken pens and pencils, a broken pair of headphones, and a few pieces of trash. All these things, he threw at me, and after they bounced off my arms or head, I picked them up and placed them on the table between us.“What is this?” I ask, holding up two pieces of...

there is a bottle of cucumber scented soap on my desk, the most beautiful colour i have ever seen: the lightest of light greens, at times yellow and at times blue, and clear and untouched as glass.  when i look at it, it reminds me of a park i went to as a kid with Gunhild and my brother and my brother’s friend and the green grass that could not have been that green, and the blue sky, and a lemon yellow frisbee that we did not have, and the dark hallway of trees with the branch that looked like a snake, and then it also reminds me of the red suburban houses and streets and picnics that i have always seen in movies.  i opened the bottle to ...

and there’s the bowl on the table and inside like something fantasy swims swirling swirling swirling in the white a fish like any other fish except that it is my fish. but not my fish.it was our fish but now it is only my fish, and it is swimming in its bowl, and it swirls and the water chops and i want to pour it out but i can’t because i cannot kill it, i cannot kill anything.but that fish is there and it is swimming and like it doesn’t know that it is guilty,like it doesn’t know that it is to blame for the mess that is on my counter, is my life, like the mess of colours behind its tank: a losing tetris game of cabinets and chairs and wh...

Seth is watching from his bedroom window as his father’s red pickup pulls into the driveway. It has been half a year since he was in this room.The closest house to his is a mile away. It belonged to a girl named Laura. He could not remember much about Laura, except that she had brown eyes, her mother made ham and pickle sandwiches, and her father played piano.Seth watches his father disappear beneath the roof of the small front porch and hears the slamming of the screen door as he enters the kitchen. The sound of stomping boots shakes the house as they wander to and fro; bags are dropped, pockets unpacked, and brandy is taken. Seth listens...

This story takes place this past summer, when I was seventeen and my friend Eddie was eighteen. Pay attention to this information, it will be important later. Another thing you should pay attention to is this guy. I guess you would have to just call him a Guy, because really he wasn’t a man, and yet he had the necessary fluff to look like he was trying. In any case, this story isn’t about him, but I feel like he’s important to the scenery somehow, if only because his tattooed arms matched the walls of the store. Eddie and I had walked up and down South, spending the last of our summer cash while waiting for the parlor to open. When that ti...

Daydreamer. I daydreamed that maybe my mother was alive. I daydreamed that I was five again and she was baking cookies from the roll. I daydreamed that outside our house the grass was green and the houses were white like a winter sky in the city. It’s the smell of cut grass, maybe, provoking this memory, but there’s only grass in the park. There’s no grass in Lisa’s apartment. It’s the smell of those daffodils, more likely—my mother always grew daffodils below the window, and the smell would waft up into the kitchen during those spring days when we opened every door and window in the house. Those were the days when we would turn on the sp...

I don’t think my mom ever took Sarah seriously when she talked about her funeral.  No, she most likely didn’t…although maybe I just want to think that.  The other option is that she just disregarded Sarah’s wishes.  I suppose that makes more sense; it seems more like our mom to have just ignored them.  She never had much of a sense of humor.On her hospital bed, two months before she died, Sarah told us that she wanted to invite everyone to her burial. “And I mean everyone,” she said.  “Even people that you meet on the street. And none of that sad crap.  I mean, you’re going to cry, don’t try to fight that…but just, you know, the thing itse...