Fiction
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Photo: Zhenyu Luo / Unsplash Down the first twist of stairs and Josie hears she is not alone, like hearing a tree in the wind beyond her bedroom window. The old man: splay-legged before his do... -
Photo: Mark Eder / Unsplash Margherita was tiny and hunched. She had light eyes, and always—summer or winter—wore a shawl she kept closed on her chest with her hand, as if clutching a necklace... -
Painting by Sara Jimenez In this story by an indigenous writer from the southern Philippines, a crime continues to haunt a local’s thoughts. It had been some time since Lolo Bebe pass... -
Photo: Sarah C / Flickr She makes the little balls with extreme care, as if for a sphericity contest, and then she puts each one next to the other. This order, which she must disturb to fr... -
Photo: Omid Armin / Unsplash A stalled train and shifting visage make for an eerie commute. I could’ve stayed in bed a little longer, but what for? Surely that would only make things... -
Photo: Cory Doctorow / Flickr What a world. In life we have to make choices, face the most loathsome decisions; and, there up ahead, all you see are forks in the road. Hang a left, or maybe a... -
Photo: Victor Grabarczyk / Unsplash An encounter between a tonga driver and the “cruelty folks” seizes a university student’s attention on his way to class. Sometimes I remember stran... -
Photo: Ray Hennessy / Unsplash In May 1974, in New York’s René Block Gallery at 409 West Broadway, Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) carried out his performance “I Like America and America Likes M... -
Photo: Zoltan Tasi / Unsplash A mother’s conflict with her daughter causes her to reflect on Khawnaa, a mathematician-astrologer and light of the Bengali medieval court. When my daughter... -
Photo: Philipp Bock/Flickr Banned from entering soccer stadiums since Iran’s 1979 revolution, the young women in this story hatch a risky plan to get inside the stadium on game day. ... -
Photo: Jordan Whitt/Unsplash In this coming-of-age tale with a dark twist, two brothers engage in a deathly game. MY BROTHER LEMMY taught me how to die. I was then ei... -
Photo: Annie Pratt/Unsplash While on a pilgrimage to the site of Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in Tunisia, which sparked the Arab Spring, the narrator meditates on revolution, death,... -
Un Uovo Vuoto, illustration by Damiano Cenderelli Italian sci-fi master Clelia Farris conjures a solitary egglike being and the company eager to provide a piercing solution. ... -
Photo: Bishnu Sarangi A girl is forced to reexamine the myths surrounding her aunt when her aunt moves in with the family in Texas after leaving her husband in India. Is she more goddess, more... -
Photo: NettPix/Pixabay In this story from Asja Bakić’s debut collection, Mars, two women exist in a dangerous symbiosis. Lichen: nature’s chaos. A body of algae and mushroom, the... -
Photo: Wine Dharma/UNsplash In his bildungsroman, the “People’s Poet of Azerbaijan” describes a time when “all the world smelled of bread.” I’d taken off my clothes and climbed into bed. B... -
“Gravity” by Dani Montesinos Feet to Feet My wife and I have a way of sleeping that might seem a bit bizarre: neither face-to-face nor back-to-back, but with the soles of our feet pressed togethe... -
llustration by Shanti Sparrow A nine-year-old wonders whether her story of a publicly shamed elephant is responsible for her immigrant mother’s mysterious condition. O nce upon a recent ti... -
Photo: James Stringer/Flickr A chance encounter with a magnetic stranger shifts something inside the narrator of this story set in the streets of Tórshavn. I first met her around th... -
Photo: Steve Oprey/Pixabay In this story from Milena Solot’s manuscript A Possible Place, the recently named matron of a successful whorehouse in Mexico City walks into the car... -
A small birch tree with arctic thyme, lupine, sea thrift, angelica, marsh marigolds, welsh poppies, oriental poppies, rhubarb and red currant. Watercolor by Roshni Robert A woman’s comp... -
Photo: Chris Devers/Flickr A bar mitzvah brings multiple generations of a family together in celebration, far from the reach of the evil eye. NEW ROCHELLE... -
Photo: Sarah McGee/Flickr While visiting a kibbutz to give a lecture, and after dining on both hot desert-root vegetable soup and sushi, the speaker becomes the listener when someone in... -
photo: arcaion/pixabay After work, my friend and I go to the Café de Prague in the heart of the Hamra district. As we sit at a table by the large window, looking out on the lighted street, I think a... -
After deciding to end it all, a woman takes a final subway ride. Z, the story writer, decided to end her diary. What is more, with an eye on approaching Christmas, she would adorn it with s...
