I have fed the cat butter and cream before he dies. Dairy is terrible for a cat’s gastrointestinal tract, but then again, so is abnormal dilation of the colon. I’ll take the blame for the dairy. God can take the blame for the rest. For the hundredth time in a week, the cat valiantly tries…
Tag: Creative Nonfiction
You present me with a gift bag as if legions of angels will descend, trumpeting your thoughtfulness in remembering my [insert celebratory event here]. I’m gracious, of course. You shouldn’t have! And I mean that. You shouldn’t have. Because now you are stepping over the line. We are simply: co-workers mothers with children at the…
Step One: Let some air out. “You have to depressurize the tire,” the older boy explains, pulling out his switchblade. With a flick of a button, a two-inch blade appears. My eyes grow wide—I have never seen anything like it. With a vulpine grin, he hands the knife to me to hold. I shake my…
“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” My sister Lizz holds up the book she is reading to her 3rd grade science class. The eight-year-old students go wide-eyed at seeing a picture of little Fern attempting to wrestle away an ax from her father. He has planned to kill a newborn pig, the runt of the…
“He fell again,” my husband mouths to me, then returns to his phone call with his-brother-who-I-cannot-stand. “No, no. I’m right here. I can be there in twenty minutes.” Of course he’s going out in an ice storm in the middle of the night. Of course he’s the one my father-in-law calls, a man who patently…