De vilde svaner (Wild Swans)

That first time I saw myself miraculous, we baked swan-fat into bread when Satan whispered, “I can’t think of anything that can make me smile like you can and although you are perfect you have come too early and are here where something laughing will be shaped...

The Girl, the Wolf, the Crone

Originally published as “The Girl, The Wolf, and The Elderly Woman.” More than once there was a soon-to-be-old woman who had a loaf of bread, held it in her hands she did, and it was inconvenient to have a loaf of bread always sitting in her hands as she...

Pinnochia from Pleasure Island

Now I think of what I’d die to forget. Now I forget. ­Where did I grow up, get out—was I as rich as a golden yolk waiting to crack in the hay? Where I come from ­would I go back? If yes, reload me. And if yes, accident, but nobody can brave enough to see we’re just...

Blue Funk

People love my city for its brasseries like hothouses, ardent and perverse, its breezes that smell of coffee and of the sea. But when I am in my blue funk I see nothing of all this. Which is why I did not notice the dress shop sooner, although it is on a street...

Little Red Riding Hood

Of this world we know very little. In my little house I know green stags leap over me when I sleep. I know outside my little house grass grows higher every time I turn my head away until I have to cut it with a knife. I know I live with no one. He throws gowns onto...