Fiction

Theodore Wilson studied his twin’s photo in The New York Times. He set the red porcelain mug on the café’s tabletop, resting his beefy hands on his thighs. How could Sherman look so young? Where were his wrinkles, liver spots, jowls? Sherman either spent hours sipping consommé or paid piles of moolah for liposuction and the knife. His teeth, too, must be capped. Theodore stroked his wattle. Sagging skin hadn’t sent him running to the plastic surgeon to look youthful. On the contrary, he had embraced his folds as a flip-off to upper-crust norms.

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Above Boston Harbor’s murky waters, gray and white seagulls swirled and screeched at one another in the morning sunlight. The air reeked of dampness and dead fish. Riggings clanged against the schooner’s mast pole. Waiting in line to answer the captain’s questions before heading down the gangplank and onto the wharf, I watched sailors hurriedly stuff canvas sails into the boat’s hold. After six weeks of battling waves on the voyage across the Atlantic, they wanted to secure the ship and be off to enjoy their free time, before the boat loaded again and sailed with the next high tide…

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The island mourned.
She had hibernated while ice caps grew and shrank, snoozed as giant squids propelled through her waters, tossed as a saber-toothed tiger raised his hind leg and marked her cliffs as his own, and turned over as the last glacier scoured a divot, burping forth a boulder.

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Ruthanne glassed over the pasture from her living room. Last night’s rain had further matted the grass into hillocks, amber moguls poised to trip the unwary. She scanned her binoculars right and spotted two mallards paddling at the pond’s western edge. The drake upended and dabbled in the muck while the female swam on. Something red flashed within the higgledy-piggledy cattails and, sucking in her breath, Ruthanne dialed the Bushnells’ center focus wheel. In the morning’s overcast light it was hard to tell. Could it be? She wondered. Ruby home at last?

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