Fiction
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Bloom
The bloom would not open until we arrived, but it was not waiting for us. It was a matter of timing. Each year in mid-March, the petals uncurled from their fetal sleeping positions, stretched out to face the sun.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Shadow Catchers
One month after receiving the doctor’s revised prognosis, Zina attended her father’s funeral. The next day, she boarded a minibus back home, a satchel of herbs for her special teas stashed in her bag. She resumed her position as the…
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From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: Today, You’re a Black Revolutionary
The important thing to remember when climbing a pole, a rope, a mountain is to not look down.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: The Things for Which We Have Prayed
In the nursing home, his few lucid days are passed recounting the things he had prayed for as a child. The zookeepers, he cackles. I prayed for the zookeepers.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Sentences
” . . . I’m pretending to be a student for the sake of a thought experiment I’m trying to disguise as a story so it has a better chance of getting read. Also, I look young.”
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Rumpus Original Fiction: A Hundred Orbits
Anoushka reaches for my dresser, too close to the Prednisone prescription. If she accidentally flips it over, I’ll have to tell the truth. She picks up two matching earrings: long ones with black jewels that could be grapes on a…
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Rumpus Original Fiction: You’re Not Going to Believe This
Everyone already thinks I love you so no one will believe the situation in which we find ourselves, orchestrated by me, is an accident. At first it made sense. When I asked if you, a fellow bookmaker, if you wanted…
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Wherever, Anyplace
For a while, at least, we were safe. The end is the beginning, the beginning is the end.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Nacho
The benign lipoma floated in a small jar that Abundio had set on his nightstand when he came back from the doctor’s office. At first, when Dr. Reyes had asked him if he would like to bring it home, Abundio…
