Fiction

Curiosa, Grande (detail) by Marta Czok. https://www.fondazionemartaczok.com/    The interviewer arrived ten minutes late, which was not a good start. She introduced herself as Pauline, and looked twentyish, and disoriented.…

featured photo by Ama Bucher / @amaluegt * * * Sisterbird, barn owl screeches, scratches, knocks and knocks – now I spoiled it. All a muddle. Just came out. Sorry.…

featured photo by Kelsey Keaton   * * * This is our home, this large marble tomb. One way or another, we’ve all been brought here to share in something.…

Marion’s brother is dead. Marion slouches to the department store––slanting rain; it’s rained for weeks––and buys little screws, the smallest files on offer, little hammers and copper wire so fine…

Before Baba Oma was Baba Oma, third cousin to the witch Baba Yaga, she was a little Polish-German girl with birds for hands. Her left hand was a small bluebird,…

The Bird at Townsend and Harrison I pass the big house at Townsend and Harrison every day, and I always see this beautiful parrot in its cage by the window.…

I did not find them. They found me. I was on the roof in the late afternoon, trying to fix one of the rotors on Municipal Drone-40. I’ve never been…

When Rory goes out to attend the funeral, he leaves me alone with the dark garden and this pile of hardbacks in my lap. I am concentrating so hard on…

I pull to a stop behind a railroad tie near the main office of Avian Sutter. A middle-aged woman crouching by a pile of logs stands to face me. She…

I heard a knock at my door. On the front step stood a short dark-haired woman, around forty-five, wearing a sports coat and a wide striped tie. “Yes?” She held out…

I pull my gyrfalcon, Helios, off of Noel’s rooster before he can break its neck. I’d thought the rooster dead initially but remembered that Helios was still fat and his…

I’m eating breakfast in the dining hall when the screen door bangs open. Marlon, the Camp High Pines swimming counselor, saunters over in his customary outfit of flip flops, white…

The day the wolf appeared in her kitchen, she went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. The wolf sank down on its skinny haunches, lifted its…

“This all looks very good, Mr. Epping,” said the worn man in the similarly worn brown leather chair as the tip of his nose peaked the sheet of paper Jackson…