“Trouble for People” by Peg Alford Pursell

A story by alum Peg Alford Pursell (fiction, ’96) appears at Storyscape Journal:

Tendrils and tangles of vines draped down the sides of the grape arbor in the backyard where nine-year-old Shelly lay underneath in the cool shade of late afternoon. Overhead, broad green leaves formed a thick mat blocking out the sun’s rays. A sliver of silvery white sky fractured through now and again. She opened and closed her eyes, squinting then softening her vision, focusing in and focusing out, experiencing a strange sensation of separateness and distance from her surroundings. She was in charge of how she could view her surroundings. The voices of her mother and father shouting in the kitchen carried over the yard. She tried to do with her ears what she did with her eyes. By concentrating hard she muffled the sound and turned inward to hear what sounded like her own mind fizzing behind closed eyelids. She could make sound move in and out like waves of the ocean, but it wasn’t easy.

Continue reading online…