A leucistic moose, a pearled animal with starch-white fur and black eyes, dies to a kia soul going 79 on an upstate rural road. The kia soul dies too—one of the world’s biggest vegetarians shoved through its windshield like a headstone. I buy us brie and a bottle of skin-contact white wine on the way home. The moose is something I see in the paper. I learn about the difference between leucism and albinism on a walk from the trader joe’s to the bus. I learn of partial and...
The Heritage Legacy Trust compliance officer looked through Calvin’s application materials for a third time. He watched her jeweled hands thumbing the vendor contracts, the permits, the recipes, the full-page photos of So Much Bun’s pastries. “Are these gluten-free?” she asked, her first words in half an hour. She’d stopped on a pic of a glistening cherry danish that Calvin knew had gluten in its batter, its filling, its soul.“No,” Calvin said. He’d considered...
All the way to the hospital, through its various wings, and along its warren of corridors, I hope that my grandfather is dead, for his own sake. But as soon as I push open the door, I see him at the end of the ward sitting up in the narrow bed looking right at me. He is bruised around the face and hands, but behind the sticky residue of his glaucoma drops, his eyes...
