The Coefficient of Friction
Ann Marie pulls yet another exam from the stack of ungraded tests and glances over the multiple choice answer sheet. The Scantron machine has marked only a single incorrect answer. She flips over to the short answer portion of the test and reads: “#51: Explain, in several sentences, the relationship between friction and heat.” The response, in sloppy scrawl, reads: Friction is a force that opposes movement. Ann Marie recognizes the phrase: the exact wording from the textbook. At least someone is doing the reading. Ann Marie looks up for a moment, rolls her neck until it pops....
Read MoreThe Secret History of Walter Mitty
The movie starring Ben Stiller tells the story of Walter Mitty, whose daydreams constitute his secret life. The story is from James Thurber, an iconic humorist who died in 1961, leaving behind a passel of great yet mostly forgotten cartoons and essays in The New Yorker, plus the one short story for which he is best known, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” (a brief delight which made it into many high school English textbooks, but was mostly skimmed over by jocks on their way to football practice… since they already knew on which cheek their buns were buttered, having no imagination to...
Read MoreOrdinary Riches
A rather reclusive elderly uncle had died in Vermont and left his niece a small inheritance. The windfall was totally unexpected, so the news was met by the niece and her husband and their three sons with an almost giddy fascination. But only Donnie, the youngest boy, knew what they should do about it, as now he presumed they had enough for a down payment on a house he had seen advertised in the classified section of the local newspaper. This was one of Donnie’s pastimes. He often scanned real estate ads with the zeal of a Trappist monk. For years he had yearned for a conventional home...
Read MoreWhen Ann Calls
“What about ‘Kate’? Kate, Katherine, Katie, Katerina…” She tried the names out, savoring the sound of them, imagining herself calling them—“Katie, come get your snack!” “Katerina, it’s time for your nap!” “No, not ‘Kate.’” The old man folded his newspaper, keeping one finger tucked firmly inside so he could find where he had left off reading. “It makes me think of Katherine Hepburn, and you know how I feel about her.” “You don’t like her because she was independent,” the old woman retorted, but with little heat. It was an old familiar argument...
Read MoreBeggar’s Choice
From the day they first met in their dorm room, Arless Stanford adored her roommate. Miranda Bridgewell, with her bubbly personality and generous heart, adopted shy, awkward Arless, who blossomed under the unaccustomed attention. Away from Detroit and a high school hierarchy in which she stood somewhere between the Untouchables and the Neutrals, Arless came out of her shell and followed Miranda into the world of the Specials. If Arless sometimes felt Miranda was a little too energetic, loud and demanding of attention, Arless saw it as her own personal failing such opinions could occur to...
Read MoreLullaby for Two Little Boys
Irina swallowed hard on the lump in her throat as she walked through the early morning drizzle to the tube station. The red patent shoes she’d bought the year she arrived in England clicked loudly against the wet pavement, dotted with cigarette ends and stepped-on chewing gum. When she was on the train, she opened her Romanian-English phrase book and took out the little pieces of card that she had made for practising her sentences from inside its front cover. She read the words, sounding out each syllable in a whisper. “Could you tell me how to get to the sup-er-mar-ket? I have got a...
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