Anna Van Someren

“We used to call it the World Wide Web, but at some point the world had dropped out. The wide was gone. It was a narrow web connecting us to those who would never love us back.”
― Rebecca Schiff, The Bed Moved

“He lifted a condom out of the velveteen satchel. I checked the label to see if it was flavored. He'd bought a variety pack by accident and some of the condoms smelled like strawberries. Even high, I refused to accept a flavor in my vagina. A condom should be condom flavored, not try to appropriate fruit. Things should be what they were. But what were they?

"It's coconut."
"That's not okay.”
― Rebecca Schiff, The Bed Moved

“A woman put her finger to her lips, though we were not talking. Maybe the Original Mantra was "Shush". I judged her breasts as revenge, but they weren't bad by naked hot springs standards. In the southern part of the state , bodies were tanned and injected to perfection, but here in the north, where we bathed, bodies relaxed and gave in to an idea of perfect acceptance. Signs advertised workshops to reclaim powers long forgotten. People banged drums in the parking lot, unlocked childhood trauma in sacral tissue, painted their penises with raspberries.”
― Rebecca Schiff, The Bed Moved

“After he got hammered one night at a high place about Lens Lake called the Grade, his parents found him standing in the kitchen.
"What if there was a language with only one word in it?" he asked.
"It would be easy to learn," said his mother.
"And with that word they would say everything every time they spoke," said Pierre.
"Yeah, that would be some language," said his father. "What are you on?"
"Just drinking," said Pierre. "Just good old American drinking.”
― Tom Drury, The Driftless Area