The Mother Part At the Free Palestine march, Anil saw the sign first: If you are anything like my mother, Agnes Kimber, who says that Palestinians are animals, then you are my enemy too. We couldn’t see who was holding it. They were up at the front. They wanted everyone to know. “How about […]
Fiction
The Mother Part
Portraits of Uncle in Boxers
by Aaron Barreras
This story won first place at the MAYDAY 2024 Short Fiction Contest. I don’t know why I was chewing on my uncle’s arm, but I was. As a child I don’t know why I did a lot of things, so must find meaning from a memory handed down to my not-child-self: being small, and chewing […]
Mile High Chicago
by Patrick Miller
This story won second place at the MAYDAY 2024 Short Fiction Contest. The whole idea, philosophically at least, was for it to look out onto the rest of America, to build a Promethean tower of sorts – a beam with no terminus – just light – just America – god in a building, reaching up […]
Mirrors
by Sunshine Barbito
This story won third place at the MAYDAY 2024 Short Fiction Contest. I liked the people over at detox more because they wore blankets as capes slung over their shoulders and walked around like overused mop heads, dirty and dripping. One guy came through still speeding, still mind-running. “You wanna play a game?” he asked […]
Chika at Work
by Chidima Anekwe
Chika at Work When Chika Okeke saw a fat brown cockroach scurry across the checkout counter, she was reminded of Gregor Samsa. When Chika Okeke read The Metamorphosis for the first time, she managed to develop a dark secret crush on Gregor’s character. How tragic and tortured he was. If he had been real, and […]
Souvenirs
by Amy DeBellis
The box is heart-shaped, but barely, like an afterthought. It’s got a plum-colored surface decorated with tiny dots: pinpricks imitating stars. The top comes off easily and there they are—all the items she has saved from relationship after relationship. All the train tickets and club wristbands and stray buttons she’s collected over the years like […]
The Strike of Hunger
by Prasant Kumar Mishra, translated from the Odia by Debasish Mishra
Madhu parked his rickshaw in front of his cottage and laid himself over the veranda. Startled, Chameli asked, “Are you not feeling well today? Won’t you take the rickshaw?” Madhu blabbered, “They have called for a strike today.” With apparent curiosity, Chameli inquired, “What’s that?” “Everything, I mean everything — the market, the transport, the […]
The River Path
by John Geddes
MAYDAY Prizes in Short Fiction 2023 Finalist
On his usual walk he came to a stretch where boulders were freshly dumped along the riverbank. No mystery: he knew this was to stop the erosion that had become a worry. There had been a public meeting about it; he’d meant to attend but forgotten. According to the account he read online, the room […]
A Conversation with Kalani Pickhart
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with novelist Kalani Pickhart about her debut novel I Will Die in a Foreign Land. The book provides a vivid portrait of the 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine through the interconnected stories of four characters whose lives are forever changed by the events. In our wide-ranging conversation, Pickhart […]
Charismatic Youth Leader
by Joseph Nicholson
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 […]
