Tag: Issue 12

  • The Emperor’s Interview

    CAST OF CHARACTERS: EMPEROR: Male. Smug, crude, full of himself and not very bright. PEYTON: Male or female, a TV reporter who knows how to be deferential and not ask too many uncomfortable questions. DALE: Male or female, a smooth, forceful surrogate for the Emperor who knows how to keep reporters fearful and in their…

  • The Emperor’s Interview

    CAST OF CHARACTERS: EMPEROR: Male. Smug, crude, full of himself and not very bright. PEYTON: Male or female, a TV reporter who knows how to be deferential and not ask too many uncomfortable questions. DALE: Male or female, a smooth, forceful surrogate for the Emperor who knows how to keep reporters fearful and in their…

  • You Too

    On the stage there is the suggestion of a car. ELLEN, 27,  appears. She is hungover. She throws a backpack into the trunk. She sits in the driver’s seat, checks her phone, throws it into the passenger seat, cries onto the steering wheel. She goes to the trunk and retrieves a bottle of whiskey from…

  • Life in Carolines

    I’ve never met a Caroline I couldn’t fantasize about. When someone mis-pronounces my name more than once, I tell them, “It’s like Caroline, but Emma. Emmeline.” When they ask where that name comes from, I tell them my mother read it in a book. I tell them that Emmeline is often a side character in…

  • In My Next Life

    I want to come back right into this one, pick up right here when all of us are home, and most of us are okay—maybe not ecstatic but who can be that all of the time and wouldn’t it be enough, coming back, to just be okay? Is there a place I can guarantee this…

  • Mark Twain’s Ghost

    appears in the attic—suited, unshaven— and waits until I’ve finished hand-sanding floors (original 1890 pine, stained, lacquered), waits until the room is ready to reveal himself. Bed made, blanket chest heaving our wedding quilt, reading lamp, extra pillows for the new guest room, which Mark Twain claims, his face now in the oval mirror neither…

  • Mark Twain’s Ghost

    appears in the attic—suited, unshaven— and waits until I’ve finished hand-sanding floors (original 1890 pine, stained, lacquered), waits until the room is ready to reveal himself. Bed made, blanket chest heaving our wedding quilt, reading lamp, extra pillows for the new guest room, which Mark Twain claims, his face now in the oval mirror neither…

  • Grief

    For an hour after learning of his own father’s death, my father stood by the phone looking out at the empty yard. I was ten years old and had never seen him act this way. I’ve realized since that I had always seen him focused on a task— carrying fresh cucumbers out to my sister,…

  • FLOAT

    the mathematics of suspension occurs in resurfacing, piecing together the pieces, the wood of the tree, sleeping through November’s extra hour, the Scorpio moon, mind lathered in soap and the unholy trinity: snakebite, basil, fallen leaves, the end of the equation a question mark. the theory of regeneration occurs beneath the surface a clockface with…