x-r-a-y magazine, Author at X-R-A-Y

THE CLOCKMAKER by Lucy Zhang

February 24, 2020 · Fiction

Far away—further than the deli store only frequented by the patrolling police officer and a few custodians, further than the farm with three cows and a horse and several chickens guarded from preying hawks by a fishing line ceiling, further than the white oak tree and its branches striking outward, and certainly much further than the borders of the city—is a cottage. Planks of wood bar the windows shut; mold creeps across the brick walls; pipes wind down from the roof to the ground, and the sound of water dripping on metal beats steadily to the murmurs of wind against…

x-r-a-y magazine

THE CLOCKMAKER by Lucy Zhang

February 24, 2020 · Fiction

Far away—further than the deli store only frequented by the patrolling police officer and a few custodians, further than the farm with three cows and a horse and several chickens guarded from preying hawks by a fishing line ceiling, further than the white oak tree and its branches striking outward, and certainly much further than the borders of the city—is a cottage. Planks of wood bar the windows shut; mold creeps across the brick walls; pipes wind down from the roof to the ground, and the sound of water dripping on metal beats steadily to the murmurs of wind against…

x-r-a-y magazine

LITTLE KNIFE by Candace Hartsuyker

February 23, 2020 · Fiction

Finger Deep in the bowels of the circus tent, the air is sage and sweetgrass. A bundle of snapdragon pods lie on the table, faces like skulls. The hermaphrodite gives me tea laced with rum in a teacup that has no handle. His index finger taps the cards, tell me what I already know. I am a girl who will live many lives. Body A man with a gap in his teeth, a gold hoop glinting in his ear. A thin, dirty hand. Every day a lemon. A yellow rind sharp as the sun. My lips puckering at the bitterness….

x-r-a-y magazine

SATURDAY NIGHT (AT THE ER) by Fran-Claire Kenney

February 22, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

Trigger Warnings: anxiety, mental illness, self-harm, suicide At best (at first), it feels like mooching off. There are all these kids in the pediatric ward with oxygen masks gripping their faces like leeches, or their scalps shiny against the fluorescents, or their parents sitting watch in a casually tragic state of exhaustion next to big beds containing little, broken people. And there I am, looking twenty-one though I’m actually not, and I’ve got, wait for it, anxiety. Everybody says they have anxiety. People don’t just say they were in a crash and felt each rib snap under the car door….

x-r-a-y magazine

A NOTE TO YOKO OGAWA by Michael Farfel

February 21, 2020 · Fiction

a note to Yoko Ogawa, I think that others might say you make key lime pie like all other confections. You pick the fruit—found in trees and sometimes pockets—and you open it and line it up and chop. It takes patience, of course, to form the pastry dough and fold it out and fill it up. I found a recipe, in the back pages of your books, a sort of misdirection in the language and the wording. A few drops of this, a subtle push and an open door. A room revealed. A kitchen and a stove. The fruit is…

x-r-a-y magazine

BEACH HOUSE by Jenny Stalter

February 20, 2020 · Fiction

Our house faces neither east nor west and sits in shadow. The tiny green house with the too much wicker. The tinted glass dishes full of seashells and tapestries accented with smooth beach glass. Oil paintings of seagulls. Mom really went for the beach look. Most people acquire a life over a lifetime, but it’s like she stopped in 1986. Stopped making a home, stopped making herself. The house smells like sour sweat and coconut rum. Mom, drunk on the couch as a permanent fixture, her robe hanging off the sofa, mouth open. I place a pillow under her head…

x-r-a-y magazine

I DIDN’T MEAN TO WRITE THIS. by Susan Rukeyser

February 17, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

I meant to write about young environmental activist Greta Thunberg and her impact, how she was received on her recent visit to the US. I loved how uncomfortable Greta made the “grown-ups,” including me. I was dismayed and unsurprised by the sexism chucked at her like crumpled, plastic water bottles: How dare she not smile? But Greta’s visit coincided with the final stages of my divorce, and—perhaps you understand?—in that tender time, everything was metaphor. ~ I read about a funeral held for a 700-year-old Icelandic glacier which had melted to the point that it could no longer move. It…

x-r-a-y magazine

SUBFLOOR by Jason Fox

February 16, 2020 · Fiction

Your refrigerator is yawning. It spills an egg-yellow rectangle on the floor. A ticking clock somewhere beyond. Then the fridge door closes and seals itself with a magnetic kiss. Plum dawn darkness washes in. You barefoot-shuffle through a current of cold air. Past your trash can and over some spilled coffee grounds that stick to your feet. It starts in this good morning darkness. First, a warmth coming from below the floorboards. Not possible. This carriage house, which is more a renovated barn, was built in 1880. It has only earth beneath the floors. No basement, no crawl space, just…

x-r-a-y magazine

CHEATER by Norris Eppes

February 15, 2020 · Fiction

I go there to ask why I go there. I go there to pick up trash from the sand. In the sand, I draw a heart with my toe. My initial. My wife’s initial. The initial of our shared last name. Then, I make two footprints beside it and let the incoming tide bury my feet. An elderly couple walks toward me along the hard sand. I do not want to talk. They stop and talk. “We are from near the Austrian border.” The man moves his cigar from right hand to left so we can shake. My hand is…

x-r-a-y magazine

A CIRCULAR SCAR by Shannon St. Hilaire

February 13, 2020 · Creative Nonfiction

A guy I dated briefly once asked about my mother of pearl ring. Everyone knows a ring has a story. “I won’t tell you,” I said before I could stop myself. Then I corrected, saying I bought it off Etsy, but it was too late. I would never tell him the story of my ring, because to know and understand my ring was to know and understand me. If I told someone about my rings, about this ring in particular, it would signal to me that I trusted them, and they trusted me, too. And I had no interest in…

x-r-a-y magazine