Fiction
Recommended
Excerpt from Eleusis: The Long and Winding Road, Translated and introduced by James Goldberg.
In 2014, R. de la Lanza spent his morning commute feverishly writing. All through the long bus ride from his home in the southern part of Mexico City to his work at a university in the famed Roma neighborhood, he poured out a story that had been forming in his head for five years, he says, “like clouds gathering for the storm.”
Confession
I’m not making excuses, Bishop, I’m really not. What I did, it’s inexcusable. Reprehensible. I broke sacred vows. I totally crossed the line, and I’m sorry for that. All that stuff. But the thing I honest-to-gosh don’t get is why my husband’s so hot and bothered about it unless it maybe bruised his big fat little ego. Yes, I told him. A week ago. At first he went all Incredible Hulk on me—eyes bulging, face bloating. From there it was the Grim Weeper: “How could you have done this to me? To us!” Meanwhile I’m wondering who’s this wonderful fairy tale us he’s talking about?
Mormon Saga
Dust clogged my nose and the strong smell of horses, the clump, clump of their hoofs regular-like and slow, the heavy creak of the wheels, and over and above everything else, like sad heartbeats, the solemn thud, thud of the muffled drums. A sort of sigh went over all the multitude, and a woman sobbed out loud once. But mostly folks were quiet. A hush and a fear like the day of doom. You didn’t dare look, and yet it was like something glued your eyes toward that wagon passing, the stars and stripes with the black crepe edgings fluttering clean to the wheels.
Three Dogs in the Afterlife
that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there ª waits while ● gets her bearings. It always takes a little while, he says. ● lifts her spirit nose, trying and…
Red Hair in the Sacred Grove
In my library is a small book, a 1912 Macmillan edition of Othello, the Moor of Venice, with the name of Katheryn Spurns on the flyleaf. On the title page the name appears again with…
Certain Places
He folds his sash, his apron, his robe. Stacks them on the cold laminate counter. Places the cap on top. Slides the sacred items into the white cotton envelope. The fabric is thin and the…
The Nape of the Neck
I was scheduled to be naked at ten in the morning on Saturday. This was a conflict with my uber-religious community and my lifetime of body shame. I drove to the studio anyway. The artist…
In the Garden of Babel
Eldria is a technician on a team that has unlocked the secret to prayer. The learning machine has labored for years. It has uttered prayers both ancient and fresh, rote and random, then monitored weather…
An Open Letter to Prospective Fiction Contributors
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought has been changing in 2019, including bringing on a foreigner as the new fiction editor. That’s me. None of the fiction I’ve been curating will appear before this winter,…
The Sacrifice
Mnemosyne She was still puzzled that the stars were not the same ones she knew. She cor rects. That she used to know. Where was Orion, its belt and sword glowing bright with mythic power…