New England Review

Nancy Reisman

Horse Seasons

New fiction from NER 40.2

Image by Andrea Schmidt from Pixabay
I

n the small pasture, one horse lay on the ground and the other stood beside it, unmoving, the day just beginning to warm. Later they would run circles in the dirt and buck, kicking up their legs, thrilling, it seemed, to be themselves on that clear afternoon. In adjoining fields, the raspberry vetch bloomed raspberry; Eastern bluebirds paused on fence posts. The sleeping horse slept, until it did not; the sky pinned up translucent clouds, mottling the blue until sunset, a swath of orange-red shifting to magenta, violet, indigo. Night cooled. By then the horses were in the barn. Beyond the far fence, Holsteins dozed upright by the cracked paved road. 

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Maria Thomas

Simple Battery

New fiction from NER 40.1.

Courtesy Simone Hutsch
A

man sat next to me on the tube. Straight away he started talking to his wife opposite us in a quick, large language, and waving his hands about to make his point. So enamored and assured was he of this point that between Canada Water and Canary Wharf, he hit me in the face. That was how this day began.

Wrigley was still dead. I went into work, my cheek screaming, and Anu pressed a wet wad of green paper towels to this tender part. “You should report him,” she said.

“Who?” I said.

“The tube guy.”

“For hand talking? It was an accident.”

“He was reckless, Loraine. It was a battery.”

“It’s probably not that simple.” 

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Valerie Hegarty

Cats vs. Cancer

New fiction from NER 40.1.

I

throw the bandage in the trashcan with the clumped kitty litter. I ask the kitty, both of us lying on the bed on top of the covers, “Did you do your best today? Did you show up and do what you needed to do today?” The kitty rolls lazily onto her back and stretches out her arms and legs like she’s in rigor mortis. She was recently neutered and I rub her shaved belly and mending incision line. She is purring. She is black with long white feet and white front paws, a white chin and half a white nose. “Kitten mittens!” I say rubbing her belly. “Cat jammies! You did a great job today, kitty!” I adjust the icepack under my bra. When I lifted my bra up in front of the mirror earlier there was blood on the outer surgical bandage. I remember the nurses said if I see some blood that’s normal.

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Noah Bogdonoff

Indoor Animals

SCIENCE FICTION.

A

deer arrives for you in a yellow PT Cruiser. A woman slides out of the atrocious car, her face sun-freckled, her hair sun-bleached. She is no-nonsense about this deer. She says that she found him next to his mother, who was dead by the side of the road, and that the wildlife rescue centers would not take in a baby deer because deer are too common to protect. She says that she has already named the deer; his name is Star Wars. He is no more than five days old.

Will you take him, she asks.

You consider that your dog is named Han Solo and your car is called the Millennium Falcon. It feels momentarily like a collapse of reality: the molecule is smaller and more fragile than the atom. And then Star Wars mews from the blazing-hot cruiser. Eeeeee, he says. Eeee. He is hungry and very cute.

Of course, you tell the woman. Of course we will take the deer.

Thank god, she says, as you approach the PT Cruiser and lift the leggy, terrified creature from the car. Thank god, says the lady again. You are a saint. And then she drives off, and you realize as she peels away that you forgot to ask her who she was and how she knew that you would be the kind of loony to accept an orphaned deer. Eee, says Star Wars.

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