“Mrs. Morrissey” appeared in The Raven Chronicles, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2004 ), 62-64.

Rosalie Morrissey had never robbed anyone before.  Oh, as a girl in the 1930s she’d snitched Padraic’s marbles, one at a time, and kept a nice stash.  And once, she and Paddy had pilfered quarters from their father’s change purse.  They’d run down 40^th Street with their loot and bought Blue Bunny Ice Cream Sandwiches from the Durn Good Grocer.  Her old friend Mary Rothstein, who’d died of breast cancer last year, shoplifted all her life and boasted about it to anyone.  Mary had purloined her entire wardrobe, gaudy and mismatched as it was.  She used to laugh and say she never understood why anyone would pay for… Continue reading →

By Priscilla Long

“Living for Robert” appeared in The Chaffin Journal (2008), 145-156.

In this house, books are everywhere. Books are stacked on the floor, stacked on the couch, stacked on the captain’s desk Robert purchased at such expense. Derrida, Adorno, Lukacs, Lacan, etcetera. Piles and towers of books list toward the front window as if they were longing for a peek at those big old sycamore trees out on Woodlawn Street. Half these books are overdue. I don’t blame my husband. Robert can’t work unless surrounded by books. Not only his own books, but just many other books checked out of the library, 486 books to be exact. I plan to return and renew them today, each and every one, despite the recent events. Why shouldn’t I, since this… Continue reading →

By Priscilla Long

This story appeared in Dalhousie Review Vol. 89, No, 3 (January 2009).

A man and a woman stand ten feet apart, looking at each other. They stand in the shadow of the north approach of the Aurora Bridge, within the weed-and-dogpoop yard of a bungalow clad in asphalt tile. This is in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. The man holds three dogs on a three-dog leash. These are an Australian Shepherd, a black standard poodle, and a big mongrel with overtones of German shepherd and lab. The man looks like he belongs to the dogs, which he does, and he looks like he’s about fifty years old, which he is. The woman, who is actually older than she looks, leans on an aluminum tripod cane. She stands… Continue reading →

By Priscilla Long

This story appeared in Passages North (Winter/Spring 2004).

Gregory Mattson struggled up from his typewriter. Sweat trickled down his lard-pale belly and darkened the elastic of his boxer shorts. Sumter yowled and rolled on the floor and scratched fleas. In the next room, a television newscaster moaned on about the heat, for it was the hottest September in memory. Gregory tore the sheet out of the typewriter carriage, crushed it in his fist, and tossed it on the floor. Crumpled pages lay scattered across the cramped little room. Lesson plans on the Civil War, now three weeks overdue. Charles Humphrey, newly appointed Headmaster of the Latona Private School for Boys, required this demeaning obeisance of all returning instructors, no matter how seasoned. Besides failed lesson plans, Gregory’s… Continue reading →