PDF Version Liquid sapphires tumble into my martini glass. My saliva is hot against my tongue as I reach for it, sticky like candy left to melt on the dash of a car. Cheers! Fellow patrons in matching goose-grey jumpsuits raise their glasses in salute. Their eyes, dirty like olives, remind me that here in […]
About Thomas Ortega II
A Fool’s Mission
PDF Version She was shifty. She changed her name and appearance every time we met and reminded me of the new name with an unspoken frustration at my confusion. One time, it was Valerie. She was Valerie with a platinum blond bobbed wig and fuscha colored lipstick. Valerie was part intellectual, part flirt, with a […]
Smoker’s U
PDF Version With little ceremony, signs throughout the Lorillard campus of the former New Hampshire State University were changed recently to reflect the school’s new name, not to mention its new charter. “New Hampshire Smokers’ University provides a viable alternative to the radically smoke-free environment of the University of New Hampshire,” says Siggie Littman, the […]
Girl Afraid
PDF Version In the front room, Phaedra Carter stares out the bay window of her aunt’s huge old rambling ranch house. The yard is a blasted heath of gray cracked soil, sparse yellow grass and pine straw. Above it, the ominous sky is three shades lighter gray than her eyes. Like sluggish blacksnakes shrugging off […]
Mrs. Solester
PDF Version Mrs. Solester wakes up at 7 am even though her appointment isn’t until 1:30 pm. She awakes alone and pushes herself out of the lonely bed. Beside herself, there hasn’t been another person in the bed for over fifteen years. Her loving husband had passed away unexpectedly, so they had no preparations. His […]