http://42opus.com/ en-us An online magazine of the literary arts. She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished; and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education. She was simple since she could not be adorned; but she was unhappy as though kept out of her own class; for women have no caste and no descent, their beauty, their grace, and their charm serving them instead of birth and fortune. Their native keenness, their instinctive elegance, their flexibility of mind, are their only hierarchy; and these make the daughters of the people the equals of the most lofty dames. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/43cQW01Vb5U/the-necklace Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n4/the-necklace All the same, we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves. So there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily at the boss, who rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he, and still going strong, still at the helm. It did one good to see him. Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added, "It's snug in here, upon my word!" http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/tWA85wpyoUs/the-fly Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n4/the-fly When I first bought my plastic ficus he was small, about as high as my knees. The bottom half of him was buried in a plastic, earth colored pot that looked heavier than it really was and there was a bed of faux-moss covering his lack of roots. I wanted him for my home office because I was missing summer in the middle of November. He had been dumped onto the sale shelf and I saw him and knew that it was meant to be. His glossy leaves reflected the fluorescent lights in a way that was perfectly unnatural and completely beautiful to me. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/Xar447bbQj0/ficus Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n2/ficus Hewitt wakes to find his arm asleep beneath his wife's neck. The old patchwork quilt is gone, kicked to the floor during the night and now only the top sheet remains between them and the cold draft from the cracked windowpane. He watches her shoulders rise and fall with each breath—tries to match her rhythm. Before getting up he kisses her back, between her shoulder blades, and she shivers, pulling the sheet to her chin. He slides his arm out from underneath her, sits on the edge of the bed and shakes it to regain feeling. His feet search the cold wood floor for his slippers. She stirs. "Where are you going?" she asks. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/p6p8f-A8gxY/the-mooring-line Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PDT http://42opus.com/v10n1/the-mooring-line Sunken in the bulbous tower of the Belvedere, a waiter experiments with a gesture, swaying on his rotund and cushioned palm the wasted quiddity of a wine glass. Not overly long-stemmed, the glass seems to cling to the deeply inset dimples of his well-fleshed, roomy hand. The puttering small bubbles of the alcohol vanish slowly one by one, as he dithers with gravity. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/AokWWlu_BqA/pleased-to-meet-you Sat, 6 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v10n1/pleased-to-meet-you Two slender she's sauntered by on gilt heels. Weather: balmy. The place: an adult-ed lobby like the set of a Busby Berkeley film, but before the extras have shuffled on. How would the pair of women have handled a dissolute tumble into a pool with the best boy? They wouldn't have considered it. They would, however, consider backstroking through glistening patches of urban air in June. They shimmered like literature to Nan, a hungry reader with lush pages to turn. She didn't know which pages she should prefer. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/42opus/fiction/~3/gMxr8heU2SE/erwin-sturgeons-surprise Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST http://42opus.com/v9n4/erwin-sturgeons-surprise