Category: Stories

Not the Last Catch

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by Ibrahim Azam

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O’Neill watched the sun peek over the horizon. The first of its rays had bled through the sky. Brady looked back at the village, shrinking out of sight as they pushed the johnboat further into the water.

It was a cold morning. The wind was callous, hitting both men in the face, spattering pockets of seawater with each strike. Unruffled, O’Neill began preparing the fishing rods. Three decades parading this ocean, he thought. And I ain’t letting some rookie slow me down.

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A fire to be kindled

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by Celso Antonio de Almeida

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“And that, class, is why time passes more slowly if you travel at speed, though you need to start approaching the speed of light for the effect to be significant,” Ezra Nolan stated flatly, his eyes drifting to the clock above the whiteboard, wishing with all his strength that time, through some unlikely relativistic effect, would pass faster. Fifteen minutes left. Fifteen minutes until the end of the day, the end of the week, and one day closer to the end of his career. Thirty years of teaching high school physics, and for what? He surveyed the classroom of blank faces illuminated by cell phone screens under their desks. They probably wouldn’t remember this lesson tomorrow, let alone ten, twenty or thirty years from now.

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My Beard Has Three Hairs

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by Matias Travieso-Diaz

Mi barba tiene tres pelos

tres pelos tiene mi barba

si no tuviera tres pelos

yo no tendría una barba

– Gabriel Aragón (“Gaby”), Alfonso Aragón (“Fofó”) and Emilio Aragón (“Miliki”)

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It was sometime in 1951. I was a timid eight-year-old who largely kept to himself and was more interested in reading comic books or adventure novels than playing marbles or throwing balls around in the backyard. I used to think there was something wrong with me, because I did not socialize much with other kids and felt no great urge to do so.

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Salvador’s Flower

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by Alexander Valenzuela

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‏‏‎I wiped the tears from my face, my parents’ voices still echoing through my head after they had told me that I wasn’t allowed to attend my dream school. I had the acceptance letter, I knew there was a chance they wouldn’t let me, but I thought that things would be different now that I had graduated from high school. I thought they’d let me go on my own. The thing is, I have no control over my future, only they do. They tend to talk about it whenever they think I’m not listening.

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Seagull Vignette

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by Annemarie McCarthy

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Next to me, Maisie brings the paper cup to her lips. The lukewarm chocolate has been given the go-ahead, deemed cool and safe enough for her to drink.

She slurps one, two, three. Pauses to blow bubbles into it, her nose stuck tip first into the liquid. Then her head rears back, nose wet and dripping and she releases a yowling scream into the air, a primal sound. Nobody at my table reacts.

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Onwards and Upwards

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by Bri Eberhart

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Once a year, on a crisp autumn morning, fog stretches across the yard, disappearing into the thicket of trees surrounding my house.

The haze is alive, breathing heavily on my neck, beckoning and pulling me in deeper until I can no longer tell where it ends, and I begin.

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