What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
—Lord Byron
I paint from historical photographs. My subjects have been prostitutes, refugees, street performers, soldiers, laborers, and prisoners, among others. By washing these subjects in veils of dripping linseed oil, I both preserve and destroy the image. My style has been called a kind of weeping realism that embodies ideas like the erosion of memory and the passage of time. I try to summon the ghosts of history in . . .
Translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston
Dad
Stella, Ella, and I were almost ten years old the day Dad shape-shifted. Mom doesn’t like us to say “shape-shifted” and insists we say “left,” but it’s not like we came home from school that day and found the house empty. Because there he was, waiting for us in his armchair, glowing in the full whiteness of his glorious rabbithood, and when we bent to pet him behind the ears, he didn’t try to run away, he just wrinkled his nose with happiness. Mom immediately . . .
For the sin of the cross look. For the sin of the terse reply. For the sin of the damp towel on the floor. For the sin of the intemperate purchase. For the sin of the selfish minute. For the sin of undermining my fucking authority with the children. For the sin of repeating yourself for the thousandth time. For the sin of the frigid silence. For the sin of never accepting responsibility. For the sin of not seeing yourself. For the sin of not apologizing and for the sin of apologizing too late. For the sin of treating you like a stranger. For the sin of not showing affection. For the sin of not appreciating me even a little bit. For all these, not to mention others, we stood in the doorway . . .
“To Get Rich Is Glorious” was awarded first prize in the 2017 Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Competition, as judged by Maile Meloy.
Water Poured Out on the Ground
A girl, it’s announced. The mother weeps openly and, unable to look, feels a leady heaviness fill her bones. It is late and raining. A cold December day, 1980. The father leaves the room to smoke outside. Beneath the hospital’s awning, he watches the ground, where thin streams of water flow downhill away from him, like his daughter will. All . . .
