Glimmer Train Stories, #89

Literary short stories by established and emerging writers. Natalie Sypolt My Brothers and Me "Ooh, Aunt Mari. Is that your fancy boyfriend?" Andrea said. "He's not so fancy. You guys are brats." Manuel Muñoz The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A. "You've been there a lot? When did you cross over?" "I was born here," I tell her in English. Then I say it again to her in Spanish, then I let her stay silent for a moment so she can know who she's talking to. Devin Murphy Levi's Recession It was one of those touching and tragic things you end up seeing over the course of a full life. Amina Gautier Aguanile Grief stricken, my grandfather called each time one of his favorite musicians passed away. Delicately, he announced the passing as if it were that of a family member or someone we had actually known. Matthew Ducker Middleweight The disappointment was painful, but far worse was the pity, the thought of her husband outside at that very moment working toward a goal that had become impossible. Josh Swiller Suddenly, The Apocalypse Obvious, I know. But it took me many years to see this, well past the point when all the guys I'd gone to high school with had married, had kids of their own, etc. They had just settled down and done it, something that I couldn't understand. David James Poissant Amputee The desert was not the moonscape people thought it was. It was brown, but it was also sage and green, sand busy with the footprints of animals. Soma Mei Sheng Frazier Everyone Is Waiting "At first," she was quoted as saying in Ugandan sign language, "I was not accustomed to the hearing aids, which whispered in a raspy voice. I thought that they were broken. But the volunteers told What you are hearing is the noise of the wind. And I realized that the voice I heard was the voice of the world." Doug Lawson The Mushroom Hunter Chundo and Laurel drank vodka, walked off into the gigantic trees, and started arguing again, with Laurel's voice carrying over the hissing of the propane. I couldn't hear Chundo's replies, just his tone. It was something I'd heard a lot from him around previous women, always near the end of things. Austin Smith The Ghost Man And he laughed to think how all the Sundays of his life he'd sat in the pews of St. John the Baptist, trying to conceive of the afterlife, and here it you simply began again in youthful vigor and joy. Ben Marcus Interview by David Naimon There are certain people in our lives, for instance, who can just say a few words I love you, I hate you, I'm mad at you, you've disappointed me that suddenly cause the chemistry in our bodies to change. It makes our heart race. Literally the words change us at the chemical level.