Surfacing

My short story “Surfacing” was included in Volume 31 (2016 – The Surreal and Fantastical issue) of Folio, the lit mag published by The American University in Washington, D.C.

I’m honored and happy: the issue is a great read.

Preview of “Surfacing”

—Do you have any idea how much anger there is in you?

Nine weeks into my escape, I got noticed. My plan was to remain invisible for at least a year. But what was one to do? I couldn’t hide under a rock all my life. So there I was, sitting on top of one, facing the Phare de Gatteville, a historic lighthouse I would later refer to as a firetower (the literal translation from the Dutch word vuurtoren).

I’m from Holland, by the way, and most of this happened in France.

The air above the English Channel was lavishly blue except for a few petty clouds on the horizon. I was cobbling sentences together for a revenge letter I would never mail. Even then I knew my words wouldn’t make it out of my notebook. The point was to get them out of my head. From time to time, I glanced up from my lap at the underexciting view. The granite firetower soared up dispassionately, a seal-gray phallus incapable of seduction.

Continue reading? Copies of the magazine can be ordered online.