artofstarving's profile

The entire house held a fragrant surprise for her when she returned home from the lab one evening. Walking through the doorway she immediately knew that Jonah had been out in the garden cutting flowers. She could smell the earth in the house and the receptors in her nose recognized the scents of azalea and begonia, and this was half the pleasing allure, she knew -- the familiarity. She dropped her keys and her purse on the small glass table in the alcove, next to a fresh white orchid, its lea...

Life looks aflame from afar, but close up it's just fireflies in a jar.

A glorious red hawk swooped over our heads clutching a wiggling squirrel in its talons. It landed in a nearby tree and dropped its prey on the hard forest floor. Sat in the tree staring at it. We hiked back to our camp and started a fire, placing a percolator on the grill. I looked up at the clouds, sizing them for rain. “I think it’s safe to cook,” I told him. Packer opened the trunk and sorted through the icebox, emerging with a half carton of eggs, a slab of butter, and a package of sausag...

The explosion occurred a little before five o’clock and was heard as far away as Bergoo. The first responder was Mary Kate who lives in a rickety room above her filling station, right outside the entrance of the mine. Mary Kate, who tops three hundred pounds, is surprisingly agile and arrived while the ground was still shaking and black coalsmoke was pouring out the entrance thick and suffocating. She went running in without taking a second to consider the darkness she was entering. Her man w...

I sit at my player piano watching the keys fall one by one. Ghost fingers playing a grim tune. It follows me into the kitchen. I open the refrigerator door. The light comes on over a barren scene. An old can of beans. A rotten quart of milk. Snow piles up against the garage. The car won’t start. She left two months ago. My heart won’t start, until she returns The mailman in his parka face says there’s not a letter for me. The Wooden Indian dances when we’re not looking. The woman at the end o...