The Carson Killer He didn’t want to get caught. The day he was suspected the shadows scratched across the hardwood floors of 29 Carson Avenue, as though the sun were trying to drag them to the basement. Day or night the sun succeeded; a cellar filled with more dark than light said as much. That’s […]
by Sarah Kirchner ’21 The man has been following me for months now. He’s everywhere I go, and I don’t know if I should be getting more One morning, I tried to yell at him to leave me alone. I told him that I can’t fix what has happened, and he knows that. Of course […]
by Erin Venuti ’20 Janie wasn’t popular—except for the third week of fifth grade, when she brought a Chinese jump rope to recess. Her mom had found it during their annual summer trip to Cape Cod, in a store that sold toys, overpriced greeting cards, and platters plastered with the zip codes of surrounding tourist […]
II Anthony’s eyes let loose a few traitorous tears in the cab seat next to me, his hand clutching the black drawstring bag between his feet as if it were a lifeline. I’d only known him a few weeks, but he was woefully unaccustomed to the violence of the Circle’s way of life. I saw it […]
by Julia Zygiel ’19 I look into the mirror, my nose centimeters from touching the glass frosted with my breath. I try to spot what he sees in my eyes. A storm? Perhaps. I study the edge of a scar that eternally creeps towards my tear duct, a finger of lightning that is always a […]
by Julia Zygiel ’19 She was a party girl and no one knew why. She was just an anxious, quiet kind of person, someone who would shoulder all of your burdens for an hour-long drunken conversation and then shrug off into the next room, desperate to be invisible again. She wasn’t the anxious-but-calms-with-drugs-and-alcohol type either. […]
by David Martineau ’18 High atop the windswept peak of a nameless mountain, a young man dressed in heavy furs pulled himself up onto a jagged ledge and rose unsteadily to his feet. Clearing snow and frost from his eyes, he blinked against the driving wind towards the entrance of the cave that yawned […]
by Dawyn Henriquez ’19 The carnival rhythms bounced across the ivory keys in disjointed synchrony. “Entry of the Gladiators” was a strange request at Sal’s, where classical bullshit was typically demanded. As soon as Sal started the almost juvenile theme music of circuses, the musings of the pseudo-intellectuals at the bar sprained over one another, […]
by Jonathan Coppe ’18 1:35 a.m.—Two brutes sitting in an SUV. Intersection along Route 50. Traffic light is the only outside illumination; no moonlight; their headlights are off. Inside the car the overhead cab light is off. SUV parked on the side of the road, in the dirt and grass. A voice comes over […]
by Marisa DelFarno ’18 *based on real encounters There was once a man who looked like your average man—blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt—but he was ridden with the mouth of a sailor, or a wannabe rebellious 13-year-old, despite little children being seated right near him. He was on the phone, and whoever he was […]