Rumpus Original Fiction: Of Birds Alit in Trees
Her name is Selvakumari, but the name catches like a vine in the family’s mouth, comes out bungled and limp. They call her Sally.
...moreHer name is Selvakumari, but the name catches like a vine in the family’s mouth, comes out bungled and limp. They call her Sally.
...moreWhen you finished, several minutes passed before we spoke. You dipped a finger in a pool of candle wax. How could I know this was the only real secret you’d ever kept?
...moreA warm wash of confidence came over me. You don’t really know who you are until you know which car you’re following.
...moreGrace shook her head, surprised by both her reluctance to speak and her impulse to lie. She had seen many photos of Rebecca.
...moreShe tried her best to be clinical, but his dreaming scared her, made her think of ghosts and aswang stealing pieces of her—little bit by little bit.
...moreWe seldom forget when people promise to give us something, whether we need or want that thing or not. I promise you death, you want a death.
...moreIn one dream, I was naked and they crawled inside my belly button. I felt them wiggling inside my stomach. When I woke up, the place between my legs was damp.
...moreThe sounds that she would expect here are entirely absent. There are no cries, no weeping. Just soothing, muffled tones.
...more[T]he thing about Gary was that he could believe what he needed to believed when he needed to believe it. So, technically, he never lied.
...moreWhat makes him think she’s in any less pain? Because hers isn’t prolonged by uncertainly, isn’t moored by hope.
...moreI wore sobriety like a shirt that was too tight in the shoulders, and everyone around me knew it.
...moreI am glad to be free of that tyrant, even if it means I am an end table waddling inch-by-inch down this path on a foolish mission that might prove impossible. I may be an end table, but at least I am free.
...moreThis is what I want him to think of me. The girl poised to surf a wave under the heaviness of the full moon, the ocean around her radiant with light.
...moreThere was a lot one could see about other people, when those people didn’t see them.
...more“What’s a six-letter word for ignoring truth,” she might say, without looking up from the puzzle.
...moreHere is the genuine article: a young, American man, who expects the things he wants to come quickly, with just a word, a smile. So be it.
...moreThe boy is looking for something specific. I can tell. It shows on his face when he scans the shelves and doesn’t find it.
...moreUp close, the beach was disgusting and tragic. A million tiny pieces of plastic were heaped on the shore like confetti from a hundred parades, or like the real sand on the beach threw up.
...moreAfter the anger came a deep, resigned sadness, as if her cruise were canceled at the last minute. She’s stuck on the shore of her life, watching everyone she loves sail into the distance.
...moreAt the end of the week, which was long with sleepless nights, Miri picked her heart out of the kitchen sink, put it in a paper lunch bag, and took it to the witch.
...moreOctavio is tired, tired of trying to separate what he remembers so vividly from the memories he can barely make out in the fog.
...more“It’s not healthy, how you live. People aren’t meant to sleep all day. We need the sun. We’re meant to live in the sun.”
...moreThere lay her gift, basking in the sunlight. A gray-green lizard the size of a shoe. It stood so still she thought it was fake.
...moreI try to see it, to see forever. The backs of my eyes are hot and ache with the trying.
...moreIf anyone was old pals it was Leona and the house. Was she friends with a house?
...moreMaybe I’ve been here too long. Maybe I’ve finally accepted that the apartment is somehow aspirational. Maybe there’s this dragon.
...more“What do you think about this,” he said, measured and cool. “What if we offer a service where people can pay to be in our family, but only for a few hours.”
...moreThe threat of perfunctory conversation looms. Raza reaches for his headphones, but it is too late. The man is already talking to him.
...moreA flash-fire covered the horizon all around and behind her, and my mother glowed genuine blue. I saw her skeleton, or maybe her white-hot soul. Something flew up and around our heads.
...moreNow he started to cry and couldn’t stop the tears. He’d found a way to beat his hunger until the next meal, and he didn’t know when that would be. Hunger, his acts from hunger, made him cry.
...more