A House With Good Bones

by T. Kingfisher

Still, ecru. It’s like if you couldn’t decide on white or beige and combined the two for maximum blandness.

I strongly believe that you have to confront your older relatives about racist behavior, but I admit, it seemed this was a much easier position to hold before I actually had to do it.

(I am still not entirely sure what vicars are, since we don’t have them over here. I think they’re like cozy priests? As far as I can tell, they primarily exist in order to solve murders or be murdered on British crime shows.)

The barista was a woman so goth that she probably bled black mascara,

Waffle House at four in the morning is a liminal space occupied by long-haul truckers, bleary-eyed shift workers, and teenagers so high they can smell God’s breath.

Some knives stay sharp no matter how old they are.

Baristas, like bartenders, have Seen Things.)

The world continued to be the ordinary world, and the strangeness was all happening in the pink meat behind my eyeballs.

“The problem with the world,” I informed Phil an hour later, “is that there’s just so much of it.” “Is that from a Snapple bottle?”

“My aunt lives in Pasadena.” I tried to think of something relevant to say. “I’m sure there’s fewer sex cultists now?” “I’m not,” he said gloomily,

thought she could get me about my weight? I’d come out of academia. If she wanted to tear me apart, she should have commented on my doctoral thesis.

Strange, the powers you find sometimes, in a garden at the end of the road.