Marcus Pactor

Marcus Pactor’s short story collection, Vs. Death Noises, won the 2011 Subito Press Prize for Fiction. His work has most recently appeared in The Collagist, South Dakota Review, and Heavy Feather Review. He lives and works in Jacksonville, Florida.

WHITE GRAVY by Marcus Pactor

Mother said the old man had never been touched. I didn’t know what she meant by “touched,” but I had heard enough. That afternoon, I leaned over the fence and grated cheese into the old man’s backyard. His cat licked every cheddar shred from the weeds. Its intestines must have gotten clogged, but it lived. The cat disappeared after city workers buried the old man. Months later, a storm buried the eastern seaboard in golden, blanket-sized leaves. Far south of there, we savored the peripheral breeze. Mother had taught me to savor, whenever possible, the small pleasures which occasionally attended…

Continue Reading...