I remember being told a story about a city. It was an ancient city, a city of towers and walls in the desert. The people who lived there were rich, and they were proud. I used to imagine the men of this proud place, so far away. They wore silk clothes in the colours of […]
Fiction
Charismatic Youth Leader
Okichize (Battle)
by Jim Genia
The trick when it comes to industrial sabotage is to understand just enough of the
mechanism to know where the line exists between damage and catastrophe. You want to cost the oil company money, not create a natural disaster.
white walls
by Caroline Fleischauer
I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. The nursing home had brick walls on the inside. Big glass doors. But my grandmother’s room was white, unadorned, hospital-like. Her slurred speech echoed off the empty walls. At seven, I saw my mother emerge from the room, crying. I shouldn’t go in, […]
Solitude
by 蕭熠Jackie Hsaio
Translated from the Chinese by Lauren Harper
In her present life, she had about five friends. Since she frequented nowhere, she wouldn’t necessarily have met them. They were all from past lives, and she wasn’t sure why they’d remained. Like limescale build-up in the bend of a pipe, thickening with time and the water flow. Impossible to ignore after a while. One […]
Honest Isak
by Jasna Dimitrijević
Translated from the Serbian by John K. Cox
Honest Isak The door was opened by a tiny woman with curly hair tied up in a bun, which was pinned on the top of her head like a giant chestnut. She couldn’t have been any taller than 5’3”, but my eyes still came in a good two and a half inches under the tips […]
Twenty-three Crates from China
by Prudence Hemming
FOREWARD I was asked to report on the aftermath of the deceased’s life from observations made at the final viewing. The sections below list observations of the physical remains and excerpts from documents recorded at different times in her last days. The final section is based on actual events written in accordance with her wishes. […]
Resonance
by Alison Sanders
The plastic bed is cold against Tamiko’s calves, her butt, her shoulder blades. The monstrous contraption hums, as if hungry for her. She’s heard stories of people who freak out in these things; she holds in her hand, in fact, a panic button. The earnest young technician who handed it to her wears scrubs and […]
Elephant
by Chris Naff
Warning: This short story contains sensitive content related to gun violence that may be triggering for some readers. “Is it real?” When the alarm goes off one of the third graders in the back asks Mr. Davis the question Ellison is afraid to ask. “It’s real,” Mr. Davis says. “Remember, we treat it real […]
The Story of the God-Writer and Minotaur by Amjad Gholami Translated from the Kurdish by Himan Heidari
When the thread was severed, we were there, at that place which had been to me or maybe to you too as frightening and eerie as all other places. As such, I have the impression that I resemble the man who, on an inauspicious afternoon, gets into a taxi with a bearded man who keeps pushing him, “write about you and me,” but who instead notes,
I only write about people who you may or may not know in the future.
Papa’s Red Money Box
by Rashmi Agrawal
Our eyes would be fixed on the box, hoping to get a fleeting peek inside. Would its touch be steely? Or had smooth feel of those notes? We couldn’t imagine if it were heavy like Maa’s salt container or feathery like ghee’s.