She plunked the scrub brush back into the filthy bucket of water that still reeked of bleach with undercurrents of, what was it? Mouse? Mouse poop? Something vile and disgusting. She’d swept her hair back into a tight ponytail, but a wisp had escaped and now fell over her brow, just a solitary ebony strand … Continue reading Morning Miniature 3.5.19
Author: Deb German
Journal Entry: It Is Still Winter
And we are almost out of firewood: we have what you see in the photo, plus a bit more stacked on the front porch. No big deal. We don’t depend on it to heat our house, as I did in the beautiful but isolated Vermont loft where I lived between 2013 and 2015. But we … Continue reading Journal Entry: It Is Still Winter
Morning Miniature 3.2.19
Most mornings Mme Saukhalova threw open the front door of her tiny pied-à-terre and took a single step backward, her head recoiling dramatically as if by whiplash, and then alluringly crossed its threshold onto the landing, glancing furtively left and right to see who might have noticed. Down, down, down each step she gingerly reached … Continue reading Morning Miniature 3.2.19
Morning Miniature 2.28.19
The last time he stepped through the front door of this house there was no pain in his knees and hips at all, but now he could feel the very landscape inside his joints as he stooped down to peer through a front window, cupping his hands around his eyes to block the sunlight. Gettin’ … Continue reading Morning Miniature 2.28.19
Morning Miniature 2.25.19
This would have been a perfect January morning, in any other January but this one, with the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window and falling on her hands at work under the tap. Every day they looked more and more like her grandmother’s hands, she mused—when had that change started to come? So much change. … Continue reading Morning Miniature 2.25.19
Morning Miniature 2.25.19
The civil defense sirens had not sounded, not yet, but the power had been out already for several hours. She’d lit the votive candle in the little holder on the nightstand just as soon as the lights flickered; in the distance she heard the unmistakable sound of an exploding transformer—that’s how her father explained it. … Continue reading Morning Miniature 2.25.19
Journal Entry: My Boy Is Turning Twenty-Six
On Tuesday my kiddo unbelievably turns 26. Twenty-six on February 26th. The big life adventure that began March 1st of 1993, when a tiny infant was handed to a pair of bewildered new parents under the most unlikely circumstances, is now more than a quarter century in the make. It’s been an adventure fraught with … Continue reading Journal Entry: My Boy Is Turning Twenty-Six
Morning Miniature 2.23.19
One could survey the serpentine bend in the river from way up there, and try to guess how its fluvial contours might have changed through millennia, like a curvy seductress rolling over in her smooth satin sheets. People in grand houses perched high on the bluff could sip coffee and nibble on toast with the … Continue reading Morning Miniature 2.23.19
Morning Miniature 2.22.19
“Oh Bran, please take me with you,” she implored. She was sitting backward on the little forlorn wood chair with the round seat, her favorite one, because it fit her just right. Leaning against its caned back with her arms wrapped around it, she was just within reach of Bran’s gauzy caftan, which she now … Continue reading Morning Miniature 2.22.19
Morning Miniature 2.21.19
You listened to Neil Diamond crooning hot August night, and the leaves hanging down, and the grass on the ground smelling sweet, and wondered, did he know about hot August nights in Memphis? Did Neil Diamond know about the heat that still radiated up from the ground long after sunset, in the darkness, with dew … Continue reading Morning Miniature 2.21.19
Sycamore Stories 