1,641 words
A long, long time after he had to move out, there was a day when things didn’t seem quite so bad.
That day he awoke in the fifth-floor walk-up he still wasn’t used to. The coffee he made was enough of a treat that he didn’t mind getting out of bed, and his legs felt younger than the rest of him, carrying him down all those stairs and back up more stairs to the train. When the sun flicked in the swiftly moving windows, he noticed he didn’t hate his job much this time. It felt reasonable to be going there. Read more …
Miss Polly
Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna Litta
3,068 words
They were sleeping apart after Yusuf had yet again failed to stand up to his parents, who still refused to acknowledge their son’s de facto relationship with her. Maureen had just overheard heard him yet again tactfully and without remonstration decline to be set up with someone more to their liking, who would make him a “good wife.” They would sleep apart that night.
Her bed was a raft out in a pitch black sea reminiscent of an illustration in a book of nursery rhymes from when she was a child. Read more …