Animal Puzzle

My short story “Animal Puzzle” was published in Volume 50, Number 4, Year: 2016 of Denver Quarterly.

NOMINATED FOR A PUSHCART PRIZE.

Preview of “Animal Puzzle”

It all began on Scheveningen beach with the sea rolling toward them in long waves, leaving foam behind and broken shells and plastic scraps and what all not. You’ll see. The sun was out and the wind was in everything, blowing an air of cockles and fake coconut. Nothing reeked of death.

The family of four had arrived in the early morning to beat the coastward traffic and now, in the late afternoon, they were exhausted. Doing nothing is no joke. Mother mostly read with eyes closed, an open book in her hands. Father did something similar, reading the same page of his magazine over and over, his eyes swerving to the legs that passed in front of him. It was dizzying, so many legs there were. Closer to the water, Son and Daughter were in cahoots together building an abstract sand sculpture. Or perhaps they were trying to build a rhinoceros. (The family is a member of Amsterdam’s Artis Zoo, some fifty kilometers North.)

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