In cowhide suspenders, nine-year-old Xavier was running toward the village. A copy of the Reverend’s abridged bible bobbed in his hands like a fish struggling to return to the sea. He had forgotten to read the assigned chapter in the bible. Last night, captivated by the stars in the dark purple clouds around the moon, […]
[fiction] —For my godson and his brother Tipping over trash cans and stacks of empty crates as he went, Ben created an obstacle course behind him. Ashen-colored snow flew up from under his feet as he ran through the alley at an all-out sprint. Dirty snow crunching, he thought. Flight of the muse underway, Urban […]
[fiction] Walking into rehearsal that day, I felt awkward and out of place. I sat at my little producer’s desk in a quiet corner of the drama room. I tried to scan the space from under the cover of my bangs, while pretending to read texts. The room looked like other classrooms—beige linoleum floors, once-white […]
Once again, here I am with a bursting bladder and a fried brain, frozen between two doors.
They mounted it overnight, cemented the rule so that there’d be no mistaking my high school for a safe space. The engraved letters of the white-and-gray sign, so new that it hasn’t even been vandalized yet, scream at me from above the bathroom door: Girls ONLY.
[fiction] After Dad left, Mom stayed up late at the kitchen table with a bottle of red wine, staining her teeth purple and chewing the edges of her nails. She did this for about three months. Then one day I came home after my last class—geography, I was in the sixth grade—and found her at […]
[self-translated fiction] Sitting on the wooden boat, Farid shook from the cold. It was night. The moon shone like a pearl on the smooth surface of the Mediterranean Sea. It was dark, dark like the smoke of fires, tragic like the body of his father, dark like the cave where Farid, who was only eight […]
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