Main Dishes

PART 1 — THE WEIGHT OF A GREASE-STAINED HAND The rain on Fourth Street sounded like a bag of nickels hitting a tin roof. It was the kind of downpour that made you angry at the sky, the kind that soaked through denim in seconds and made you forget what dry socks felt like. I…

The metal was so hot it burned through the knees of his jeans. He could smell the gasoline dripping onto the scorched earth, ticking like a clock winding down to zero. “You gotta get out of here, boy.” The woman’s voice was nothing but gravel and blood. Her eyes were half-closed, staring at the crushed…

The air in the shop was thick as molasses, heavy with the smell of old paper and the low hum of a box fan fighting a losing battle against the Illinois heat. I was marking down a box of glassware that nobody wanted when the door chimed. He walked in like he was expecting the…

The sliding glass doors of the ambulance bay blew open with a violent, pneumatic hiss, letting in a blast of freezing January air that cut right through my scrubs. I stood rigid behind the central nurses’ station, my badge hanging heavy against my chest—Dr. Irene Ulette, Chief of Trauma Surgery. I had seen a thousand…

“Engine off, sir!” My voice cut through the cold November wind like it had a thousand times before. Out here on the shoulder of I-71, the headlights of the semi-trucks blurred past us in a wet smear of white and amber. The man in the beat-up sedan didn’t roll down his window. He just sat…

The register drawer slammed shut with a sound like a jail cell closing. —Ryan. Aisle seven. Cleanup. That was Janice on the intercom. She didn’t say please. She never did. I looked down at my hands, stained with the dust of a thousand price tags, and I felt the weight of nineteen years settle into…

The first thing you need to know is that Jasper hadn’t eaten in eleven days. Not a single bite. The vet techs whispered the word “fade” under their breath like it was a curse they didn’t want the other dogs to hear. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Arthur Callahan. I’m eighty-two,…

The varnish on the gym floor was sticky beneath my sneakers, and the air smelled like burnt popcorn and cheap perfume. I shouldn’t have come. That’s all I could think as I watched Mia twirl with her dad by the bleachers. Her pink dress puffed out like a cloud. He was laughing, dipping her low…

Part 1: The Weight of the Receiver The air in the Iron Ravens clubhouse was thick enough to choke on. It always smelled like a mix of burnt motor oil, worn saddle leather, and the cheap incense we lit to mask the ghost of last week’s spilled whiskey. It was a smell that meant home,…

The wind wasn’t howling anymore. It was screaming. I couldn’t feel my toes. Hadn’t felt them since the sun went down—or maybe it was coming up? In a blizzard like this, Ohio forgot what time was. The rope of the sled cut into my palm through a mitten that was more ice than fabric. Mr….