Berkeley Fiction Review

Remainder

After our first week, I begin to lose things during the walks along the creek.

The ship features a recreation of a slave ship's hold. The cruise prides itself on it. It is not a good recreation, if the metric is realism.

Promise me you won’t write a poem about me.

I am Iris, I thought. Iris is me, and Iris is in the wrong lane.

Don’t worry, I said, you’re the sea, and it’s impossible for the sea to drown. There’s nothing big enough for you.

The hall closet candles are white, ten inches long, and shaped like penises.

Talk to me. Make me feel male.

That was the summer that Tim had a left hand full of broken bones.

He was from a generation for whom superstition and folklore were interwoven seamlessly into history.

Terrible things have happened. Your expertise is required to set right the unhinging of our world.