Sublime

I couldn’t help but notice the placidity of a small, all-female household.

decepticated,

The door opened and a woman in her late forties came out. She had permed hair, a linen jacket, printed skirt; her eyes were puffy and swollen from crying. So, it’s one of these offices, I thought. An office without a secondary exit. I liked secondary exits. The suffering needn’t meet the suffering in the anteroom of suffering.

Somewhere in the tall house next door a toilet flushes, and the back room’s pipes sing.

coda

The Competition

you are responsible for ensuring that your story’s only author and final approver is you.

delivered into the short woman’s speckled hands. Cutting the cord,

issues of adaptation and authorship