Without realizing it, she had bludgeoned him to death with a statue of La Virgen de los Ángeles.
But how had it killed him? It was just a hollow, bronze replica of the black Madonna and child. Was it because it was filled with holy water? Or because she had slammed it like a machete into sugar cane?
She always left him, wandering off like a cat without provocation or explanation, returning just as suddenly and without comment after a day or a week or a month. He loved her, but it was hard to keep track of where he stood in her life. He kept her clothes neatly stacked in a chest of drawers and hoped for the best . . .
The vaporetto turns the bend.
You’ve seen it in countless paintings by Canaletto, Turner, and others, a thousand and one photographs and movies and TV documentaries, but still the eternal view unfolds like a slow-motion epiphany.
The Grand Canal in all its majesty. Canal Grande . . .
Gateway to the Stars by Matthew McGevna Mastic Beach, Long Island (from Long Island Noir) Great with fear, Nick was deliberate about getting out of his car just as the policeman had told him. The order came after Nick was ordered to cut the engine because the noise from his broken muffler was “waking up […]
Game World illustrator Yongjin Im discusses the process of illustrating C.J. Farley’s middle-grade fantasy novel.
Tim McLoughlin, a Brooklyn writer and editor, stopped off at a local bar after a Brooklyn Cyclones game. Along with the beer, the bartender, Thomas Morrissey, thrust his unpublished short story, “Can’t Catch Me,” into his hands. Mr. McLoughlin loved the piece, about a detective who investigates the murder of a Bay Ridge baker who […]
Chapter 1: Paradise I stood knee-deep in the foamy surf, shading my eyes and looking out over Escondido Bay for any sign of a dorsal fin. A strong riptide pulled on my ankles, burying my feet in sand. Up and down the glistening beach along the overgrown weedy foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains, Norte […]
Chapter 1 Landing in the midst of the descendants of vikings, the transatlantic flight with a one-year-old daughter and a wife teetering with apprehension has all but wiped out Pharaoh’s capacity to Chill out! The phrase was embraced by his wife, Hannah, during her twelve-year sojourn in California, and she continues to use it officiously. […]