Landslide
I was comfortable at the University of Tehran studying geology. I had meandered into this discipline randomly. My family enjoyed hiking in the nearby Alborz Mountains. My father had always been excited by unusual rock formations and pointed out the many layers of earth which had been compressed into colorful strips of rock on the face of the slopes. He encouraged me to start a rock collection. Although I was a lukewarm outdoorsman, I was attracted to the science by the sheer order of it. Every type of rock could be named and categorized. Natural forces slowly changed the stones. Just by...
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alight that mighty black box that scorched Delphi sorceress it’ll tell us what the fuck...
Read MoreLot’s Confession
Genesis 19:1-29 In the night air the city square was falling fire, our eyes stitched in burning, the last chance to break out. I had to put an end to it, my daughters offered to strangers at the gate yesterday, the girls just squinted at me twisting their braided hair. Up the mountain, my wife crossed her hands, tight fisted against her stomach, wrapping her sadness in the folds of her blue dress when she turned back to head down to the bones of our baby boy in the backyard. Longing for the life she left behind came clawing back to her, stronger than any punishing commandment. She stored...
Read MoreBefore the Contract
The factories encircled us, like gleaming battleships with many wars to feed. I watched my father wear down from work, a sweat-stain heart bleeding through his t-shirt. By day the workers dreamed of sleep, the bed a balm for weary bones. By night the workers dreamed of work, their astral bodies fitting parts to machines. Sometimes, late at night, they walked among the shadows of leaves, seeking the solace of wounded stars. I know now the world will not end, because it turns on the endless labor of those too tired to die. Yet I did not know this in my heart, my bones, before I signed my first...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of August 24 (Connection)
This week, Wild Violet’s contributors are addressing various types of connection, from work relationships to strangers to telepathy. In “Visiting,” a poem by Michael Mark, a hospice worker interacts with a patient whose memory falters. In “Smoker’s Cross,” a short story by Leonard Scott, officer workers form an uneasy bond during a smoking break. The non-fiction piece “Type-setting Tunes” by Terry Barr shows how he once found common ground with a much older co-worker. The short story “Reaching” by Patrick Kelly Joyner follows a...
Read MoreReaching
Ben met Donna on the quad at 7 a.m. (his suggestion), and they walked to the SUB to get bagels for breakfast (her suggestion). Donna was acting strangely right from “hello” — really formal and distracted. Out of the blue, she asked how his class was going. Normally they only talked about their classes if they had a gripe or if a professor had told a funny joke or said something weird. Ben felt his brain on hyper drive, and it was possible he was reading too much into such an innocent question, but he didn’t think so. She knew what he had in mind. ...
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