Deborah Jiang Stein's Blog (13)

About the Zebra

The dry harsh laughter of a man in the distance streams into a high and tenor chuckle right behind her, then far away, the upstairs telephone clamors and she doesn’t pick up at first.

 

The ninth ring drives her into near insanity yet even now she doesn’t answer because her husband, Bill, just turned into a winged zebra,…

Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on June 26, 2011 at 1:00pm — 1 Comment

The Last Day of Esther Levin

I got no proof but I have my certainty. One day I'll walk out of here. I taped my four windows with duct tape, all waterproof and air tight so the dark can't leak in, can't sneak in like a thief, and rob my peace.



I live in the short end of the L-shape, third floor, on the top story of this hundred-unit apartment building and it’s the oldest part of this rickety joint, but there's an up side to everything because it means…

Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on December 30, 2010 at 8:30pm — 7 Comments

Bones and Blues

Etta Robinson invited her closest friends to watch the cremation. They declined.

 

She watched her husband, Silky's body flail around in the crematory for two hours, then scavenged the remains.

 

"Make instruments from my bones," Silky asked her in his dying wish, but the cremators offered just the finger, hand and toe…

Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on December 13, 2010 at 9:00pm — 6 Comments

Never Mind the Dream

Turns out the psych wing in prison is no place to raise a baby.

They called it an evaluation, I call it a rest, like the rest of them can go to hell. That kind of rest. They evaluated me for twenty years off and on. You'd think they'd have their answers by now. You'd think they have enough on me.

 

***

 …

Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on December 13, 2010 at 3:30pm — 5 Comments

I'm excited to be on Fictionaut now!


I'm not sure how people announce or cross-post here on 6S. I invite you to read my recent short-short on Fictionaut and would love to hear feedback.
http://bit.ly/moment-of-truth
Thanks.

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on November 24, 2010 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

The Mother Who Waited



Sometimes attachment takes a long time.



My parents adopted me around three or four from foster care. Before foster care I’d spent a year with my other mother in prison, when authorities removed me around age one, and I unconsciously held out for over twenty-five years for my prison mother to “come get me,” held out without knowing it.




I rejected my mother for decades, the mother who stood by me no matter what, the mother who waited…
Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on November 24, 2010 at 1:00pm — 4 Comments

The Mysterious Dr. Ramsey (Accepted into the 6S collection)

NOTE: This is excerpted from my short story collection-in-progress, of quirky down-and-out characters (think Diane Arbus photographs) each on an offbeat path along the margins of life in search of a place to call home.

Here, I take on the challenge of Six Sentences for this title competition.
You'll find many more periods in the original story!…


Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on June 28, 2010 at 4:00pm — 3 Comments

My new blog post on Huffington Post

Do You Need a Mother-Mutt . . . Mentor, Spiritual Advisor, or Life Coach?

June is the month of Father's Day, but I'm still on the mother-theme of last month. Today I uploaded my new piece on HuffPo.

Take a read please, and try my quiz to see if you need a Mother-Mutt. Thanks!
http://bit.ly/need-a-mother

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on June 8, 2010 at 12:00am — No Comments

First Flowers, Then the Truth

Dear Kate,



It’s strange without you and Tokyo is so far from Seattle, but I’m sending you a small package today or tomorrow, including pencils, and your harmonica.



Here, my news is the new sign I hang on my flower cart, For a Lucky Tomorrow Buy a Flower Today.



It works too, as far as keeping customers, with all my regulars, then new ones who stop by to ask if it’s true -- about a lucky tomorrow -- and then…
Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on May 30, 2010 at 1:00pm — 1 Comment

Spiders Everywhere

Tokyo, Japan



Dear Aunt Fran,



Please don’t be mad at me but I had to take off, just have to figure out how to settle down on my own and the further away the better, but
it started out weird.



After we came back from the South and you settled on Vashon Island with your bee ranch, I left you there and went to the beach on the other side of the island and got a cottage for the night;
just had to be… Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on May 22, 2010 at 9:00pm — 5 Comments

A Bad Attitude and Drippy Wrists

Dear Aunt Fran,



Yesterday, a man I always see on the train sat next to me, his hair matted as if he’d left it full of soap and suds, and he started talking out loud, telling everybody how he once took sleeping tablets and slit his arms and wrists and then held a saucer under his wrists to catch the blood as he walked to his refrigerator to get a beer.




After this dreadful story, out of nowhere he yelled, “I hate God!” and then he glared at…
Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on May 22, 2010 at 12:30am — 4 Comments

Dominoes and Double D's

“Line up, play the winner,” one girl calls out as her cell mate and three others huddle in a dominoes game, each one packed into khakis two sizes too small, only right for women who need to prove what fifty pound bar bells can do to a woman’s biceps during a twenty-plus year prison sentence.



“Big six,” the girl shouts as she smacks down the ivory on the stainless steel table, wins the game
,… Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on May 19, 2010 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

The Quarter

I stole one quarter from Elizabeth Bishop’s jacket pocket so there was no need to rifle through the rest of the coats piled on my parents’ bed for I now owned a coin from the queen.



She was visiting my parents for some reading or lecture in Seattle but why would a little girl, especially this one, prison born I’d find out soon enough after I learned I was adopted, care about Pulitzer-prize winning authors when all I wanted was to feel…
Continue

Added by Deborah Jiang Stein on May 18, 2010 at 3:30pm — 6 Comments

© 2013   Created by Robert McEvily.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service