Hoa jumps onto Phuong’s motorbike and grabs the back rail as they swerve into traffic. He pulls out an ad in the Saigon Times. more »

We are too dark for this town. We come from far away. Humble glove makers from the rain-shadow side of the volcano. For twelve hundred years our family lived in the same small place. Rain, soot, rain. No sun for the glove makers. Lots of drinking and fascist songs. Crummy shops, crummy piazza. Too hot, too wet. Nice gloves, though. Very fine gloves, beautiful stitch-work. Then Nonno kills a big fascist in a fight. Nonno is a big fascist but this man is a bigger fascist and he sells Nonno a... more »

I remember the taste, like pennies in my mouth, and copper sunlight angling through my kitchen window. The job interview started my heart—the interview of my life, just a few hours away. And I had been foolish enough to fall asleep like this: slouched across the kitchen counter, perched on a stool, left arm palm-up across the cutting board, an empty bottle of red wine still rested against my nose. more »

Last September, Alex Rose woke up in his white hospital bed, exhausted from a dream involving Tibet, orca whales, and Owen Wilson, and discovered that his AIDS was gone. YOUR QUESTION: What is the significance of Alex Rose’s dream? MY RESPONSE: I… more »

X bought the upright 1881 Steinway for two thousand dollars from a second-hand store a few blocks over from Washington University on her lunch break. She had intended to inspect a nineteenth-century English mahogany Chippendale ribbon-back settee she had seen in the storefront on her way to the parking garage—a perfect addition, she felt, to her front hallway. more »

I ask her. I hold the phone beneath my chin. I am standing in my kitchen, looking down at the sink full of plates. Our house is a hundred years old and there is no dishwasher, except me. My husband heated up something tomato-y before he left for work, and it has crusted across my cooking pots in tough red scabs. I should be able to handle things like this. After all, I have bought an apron. I have a stack of resumés in the other room, waiting for envelopes. I wonder if I can list apron-wearing... more »

Elizabeth made love to Nganga that night as if he were a beautiful black jaguar she’d decided to ride. She wrapped her thighs around him, letting his heat warm her. From Nganga, Elizabeth pulled power and energy into her calves and up to her thighs. She rode Nganga, taking his name like a hot lozenge on her tongue and, as the name melted to liquid in her mouth, she swallowed. She let the force of that dark river swirl through her and then pulled out its thick wet sound. more »

I want to write a story. Set in Singapore. About a girl who never felt like it was home. Who always felt different from everyone around her – her German name, the way she talked, the way she thought. Who moved away and thought she’d found home someplace else, but now realizes that the someplace else only felt like home because she was in love with a boy who made it home. more »

Who am I, Clark Kent? Long story short, we split a prawn something-or-other bag of chips and drank from the water fountain at the Square. And it was okay because mom was pleased with herself. But London is gone, and now chips don't taste like prawns, and before this guy at the dollar store even speaks, I know he's going to use the H word and I'll be powerless. more »

Sometimes, late at night, when I’m browsing the thousand or more books on the shelves in my father’s study, I can hear them, the books, calling out to me. “Oh! Oh!” they say. “Pick me! Pick me!” And no matter… more »

Feel it fill your mind, fill your head. You like that, Dave, it’s like having your tummy tickled. Feel that music, become it; you know it’s so much easier when you let go. more »

One thing I should explain right away. I still refer to the Great Man as my husband, though he divorced me forty years ago. You probably didn’t know I existed, did you, till you started your research. I doubt anyone’s left alive who remembers me. Except him, of course. Coffee? No, stay here, I’ll bring it out. more »

In these days of singing, Mother glided across the hardwood floors of the house. A hum was on her lips. It seemed that Mother, and her song, was just out of reach of the children. She’d sneak around the dusty corners of the house avoiding the children completely. more »

In the driveway he grappled with the grocery bags, getting them out of the trunk of the Saab, trying to pick up all four at once, fool that he was, bending and lifting like this in such cold weather, at his age no less, something would go, pull, snap. But there you were, he was in a hurry to get inside, hated being watched, and old lady Meltzer next door was at her usual post by her kitchen window looking out at him. Nosey old biddy. more »

Builder came in the battered door, sat down in his rickety wooden folding chair, and opened the black and grey covered book titled THE STARS. He turned the pages slowly and carefully as though they would fall out if turned too roughly. Words came up from the book into his eyes. more »

Introducing Vintage Fringe, a monthly feature highlighting excellent writing from a past issue of Fringe. But really, Annie was nervous. Deep in her coat pocket, she fingered the precious package she carried, thumbing the protective Saran Wrap over and over, the slick plastic rebounding gently from the touch of her fingers. She couldn’t believe it. It was there, in her pocket. Soon she would be able to enjoy the fruit of her illicit labor, if she could make it to a secure place. ... more »