In our morning reading: Blake Butler on Vladimir Sorokin’s fiction, an interview with Jerry Stahl, and more.
Fangs
Fangs
by Tabitha Blankenbiller
The orthodontist asks me to bite and bite again. I grind on a slip of magic paper. A woman hovers behind him with a water pick and instrument tray, and knows what he requires before he asks. Together they file down a stray edge to my front tooth, the one I’ve paid hundreds of non-insured dollars to fix. I have spent the last 30 months with my mouth corralled by invisible fences, yanking my stray right incisor back in line with the friends it abandoned so long ago. In the commercials they tell you that Invisalign should only take you a year, but that’s because your teeth weren’t as fucked as mine.
Aunt Eva Wore Hats
Aunt Eva Wore Hats by Tabitha Blankenbiller The wives and martyrs in my family tree are faintly remembered for who they bore and what they lost, chronicled in genealogy documents that read as dry as bleached desert bones. Sarah Morse married Henry Morse on November 21, 1896. It was the 20th wedding certificate issued in the Appleton township registry. They had three sons: Saul, John, and Peter. A daughter, Emma, died at birth. The children remained in the Appleton townships, where […]