dreamszilla

Chitra Gopalakrishnan's character describes the sublime experience of enjoying a rare Indian delicacy, and tries to learn its secrets - while harbouring a secret of her own. Image generated with OpenAI It is a fugitive pleasure. I talk of the act of swallowing intact a single, sweet blob from a frothy landscape of milk foam, without moving it around it in my mouth in any way. And of polishing off an entire clay pot in this very manner. I guess it has to be this way when I am absorbing something so gossamer-thin, shocking in its subtlety, one that is a cross between a snowflake and a cloud. It is an experience that leaves me with a tantalizing trail of aftertastes and a deep yearning for more. My felicity arising as much from how it feels as from how it tastes. Aftertaste included. I talk of my indulgence in daulat ki chaat , literally meaning a snack of wealth. A cold, feathery delicacy to be savoured only in winter, between November and January. That too only...

Thirteen-year-old Classy mourns the loss of her big sister in childbirth, but doesn't know how to deal with her good-for-nothing uncle; by Alecz Hansen. Image generated with OpenAI Doll sat with her puffy bottom plopped down in the dirt that I liked to pretend was grass. She buzzed and bubbled her lips making airplane noises for her toys even though none of them were planes. When the sun hit her face just right, I smiled and thought to myself that the nickname "Doll" was so fitting. She was born Jorja Lee Shmooter, but thanks to my baby sister Reece, she was deemed "Doll". Reece didn't understand how a person could be so small. She jumped up and down when my older sister Finny brought her home. "I wanna see! Lemme see!" Reece had screamed. Her tiny body jittered with excitement for her niece that was only seven years younger than herself. Finny then knelt down on the busted wooden floors of Mama and Daddy's house and let Reece pe...

A Beat poet struggles to find meaning in 1970s San Francisco; by Barry Garelick. Image generated with OpenAI A row of houses marked Jack's descent. Like the beginning of a poem, he thought. "A row of houses marks my descent, not into madness or depression, but into North Beach," he said aloud. "A descent into the hordes of the invisible, the unseen in a changing world." It was late November, 1979. The few trees that changed color in San Francisco were changing, and the weather was getting colder. Jack was in his late fifties; he smoked unfiltered cigarettes, drank heavily on some days, and less on others. He made enough money to get by, some from odd jobs, and some from betting on horses. His thoughts were often conversations in his head with people he knew, or made up. What he remembered from those conversations he wrote down on scraps of paper, some of which he would lose, and others find years later. Some of the fragments became poems and some...

I'll give you 90% odds that you'll enjoy Adam Strassberg's story about a married couple who use a twenty-sided dice for their decision-making. Image generated with OpenAI Martin and Mari married the year after graduation. Martin was a tall thin white man with black glasses, Mari was a short fat black woman with white glasses. It was a mixed marriage - sort of - they both majored in mathematics, however Martin minored in statistics, whereas Mari minored in accounting. They had a remarkable romance - they had never had a fight, not even a small one, never a disagreement, nor even raised their voices to one another. They were committed to absolute fairness and equality in all aspects of their relationship. It was a match made in heaven, or at least the Euclidean domain equivalent of such. Martin trained as an actuary, Mari as a CPA. They loved the small suburban starter home they purchased together soon after their wedding. It had a slate black roof with a whit...

via American Short Fiction https://ift.tt/4ltzSr7

My mom had dark auburn red hair and beautiful green eyes. She had 13 children, but only 11 of us lived. We lived on a farm in Juliette, Georgia. She cooked our meals, made our clothes, taught us how to care for ourselves, and loved us. One day I was sitting alone outside digging holes in the Georgia red clay beside our house. The dirt was hard, but I had a fork, and I liked digging and creating little clay houses for my stick people to live in. The wind was blowing. I felt like the air was changing, but I was content to add little bits of water to make a little creek beside my clay houses. Suddenly, a thunderous lightning bolt hit the ground about 20 feet away, and I froze. When I looked up, the clouds were dark, but there was no rain. It was the first time I had seen a dry thunderstorm, where thunder-bearing clouds produce rain, but the rain droplets evaporated before reaching the ground. I stood but couldn’t move. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I looked around but d...

In early 80s smalltown USA, Shoe works as night chef in a bar with an absolutely terrible boss; by Bill Tope. Image generated with OpenAI i Halloween, 1982 Shoe stood before the prep table in the kitchen, his huge, gleaming chef's knife flailing away, chopping the cabbage, peppers, and carrots into a massive mess of coleslaw, one of the signature dishes provided by Ronnie B's Bar and Grill, the city of Edwardsville's foremost barbecue establishment. Ronnie B, the man for whom the tavern was eponymously named, burst suddenly through the open doorway that separated the tiny, cramped kitchen from the tavern itself. The room was suddenly perfumed with the essence of English Leather. "C'mon, Shoe," urged Ronnie, "get those ribs out. People are hungry, man." Shoe looked up from his prep work at the table and peered into his boss's mean little black eyes. "Ribs got another twenty minutes yet," he muttered, observing Ronnie...