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On this fine Monday, here are two Stories of the Day that will stick with you. Share with lovers of good writing.

“I Am Speaking the Language” by Ashley Bethard (in Used Furniture Review)

 But pay attention so that you might read this: the drops of sweat sketch delicate ellipses across our skin. Our long streaks of moisture the unfinished em-dashes that finish themselves after they’ve evaporated. A semicolon the pause; where I catch my breath.

In bed I trace the Russian letters on your back and pretend to know what they mean. I mouth the words, pretend to pronounce them, tripping the consonants c and k. I write a story with my fingers. I hope you can hear it.

“Notes on a Marriage” by Karen Eileen Sikola (in Specter Literary Magazine)

They met in the rotunda. I could not exactly picture it, because he only wrote it on a postcard that provided insufficient space for description. But I knew that they met, and I knew both she and the weather were lovely.

“She’s married,” he wrote later, on an index card. He drew a single black line down the center of it—separating the words from my name and address—and slapped a stamp in the corner. When it arrived, I secured it to the freezer with a magnet, so I could read it at eye level. Sometimes I’d spend full mornings staring at it while eating my cereal. Other times, I couldn’t be near it. I’d find myself craving ice cream, but turning back at the sight of his scribble, fading each day from the light which crept through the bay window.