BECKETT / WAITING           p. 49

GODOT enters, stage left

.
.
.
.

She: Macular. He: Parkinson’s. She pushing, he directing, they get down the ramp, across the grass, through the gate. The wheels roll riverwards.

— Edith Pearlman, Hint Fiction

Our job was to lubricate the time machine and keep it oiled, but man, we just now found out we’re being paid by the hour.

— Ron Carlson, Hint Fiction

“Can’t you count? I said two of each. This” — he shook the squirming fluff of black and white in front of her — “is three.”

— Shanna Germain, Hint Fiction

Excuse me?

Tongue, he repeated. Tongue the notes.

She replayed the etude. The result was so obvious it seemed obscene. Unnecessary. An excess of separation.

— Robin Rozanski, Hint Fiction

You wear a shawl of moonlight, and my mouth where your breast used to be.

“We waited too long,” you say.

“Not quite.”

— Ann Harleman, Hint Fiction

I always thought it would hurt more but I kind of liked it. He hoped I would. And technically I’m still a virgin. Amen.

— Robin Hollis, Hint Fiction

There had been rumors from the North for months. None of us believed it, until one night we started to kill our children too.

— L R. Bonehill, Hint Fiction

My wife curls toward me, a comma forcing a pause. Her body is hers. Again. The emptiness settles between us. We listen to it breathe.

— Madeline Mora-Summonte, Hint Fiction

Susan turned  from the road, walked to the house, and spent the evening reassembling the words that had passed from his lips to her ear.

— Ryan W. Bradley, Hint Fiction

He held her crepe-paper hand and summoned an autumn day, sepia and smoke, and dancing, and music that sounded nothing like the beeping of machines.

— Marcus Sakey, Hint Fiction

The fence is tall. Good. The mother is typical white trash, too loud. But the kids . . . they seem frightened and quiet. Good. Easier that way.

— Gary A. Braunbeck, Hint Fiction

Flight attendant Sherri was always quick to offer airsick bags. Reverse-bulimia, though a disgusting disease, was bearable for her when the meals were fresh.

— Jack Kilborn, Hint Fiction

He realized, taking a long swig from his beer, that no one had told him whether swallowing the octopus was guaranteed to kill it.

— Jess Row, Hint Fiction

If we should start telling the truth that we are nothing but Jews, it would mean that we would expose ourselves to the fate of human beings who, unprotected by any specific law or political convention, are nothing but human beings. I can hardly imagine an attitude more dangerous, since we actually live in a world in which human beings as such have ceased to exist for quite a while . . .

— Hannah Ardent, “We Refugees” (1943)