Fiction
I had come into the hospital as I came into the world—twitching, foaming, groaning. I was almost brain-dead, they said, yet here I was, good as reborn.
Actor Kelly AuCoin reads the short story “The Mona Lisa” by Robert Oldshue as part of BLR’s 20th Anniversary Celebration.
But here I am, and here you are, and once you’ve heard the whole story, it’s your job to decide: Am I the crazy one, or is it all of you?
Leslie Jamison reads an excerpt from her prize-winning story “Letters to Michiko” as part of BLR’s 20th Anniversary Celebration.
Someone’s died. I know this because of vague posts on Facebook. It can’t be anyone I know very well, or I’d have texts or phone calls or, well, something.
They’ve formed a barricade.
Mountain goats stand shoulder to shoulder across the narrow two-lane. They appear unbothered by the idling of my car’s engine, content to simply stand and chew dry grass sprouted between asphalt cracks.
At first you don’t. You hold back. Finally she says, “What, you’re afraid I’ll break? You’re afraid it’s contagious?”
Now he stares at the bag of bulbs, the naked little bodies burgeoning, begging for life in the sweet dark ground. The ground that buries.