by Sam Williamson
Read More »Despite all our years together, the care and devotion I have for her, Inspiration continues to be a capricious and unreliable life partner.
Tag: fiction
My Beard Has Three Hairs
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”)
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.
Read More »They Used To Call Me Frank
Beauty in Broken Pieces
by Patricia Nicole Tan
I’ve always had a fascination with vases, ever since I was a child.
Read More »Salvador’s Flower
by Alexander Valenzuela
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.
Read More »His Mother Used to Isolate Him in Her Coldness
by Huina Zheng
Like a frost creeping through the early morning, her indifference enveloped him, a chill more pervasive than the winter wind. While he never ignored his own child, his mother had often enveloped him in a suffocating neglect. This disregard swirled around their home, leaving an icy sheen over his heart.
Read More »Seagull Vignette
by Annemarie McCarthy
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.
Read More »Onwards and Upwards
by Bri Eberhart
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.
Read More »The Bus
by Jessica Tan
The long, yellow bus screeches to a halt next to the curb as you lift your eyes up, watching the doors fan open for the first time this fall. You spent all morning organizing your school supplies, thinking of what your new schedule would be like. But first, you have to make the journey there. And if you had it your way, you would drive there yourself. If you were old enough.
Read More »The Real Willy Wonka
by Blaire Baron
It is still dark and the early morning cacophony has yet to greet the day. The others have already left and Washington knows they aren’t waiting for him, not this time. With no Mum to wake him, he’s getting better at finding his clothes in the dark. Washington scoops up a sticky ball of yesterday’s ugali and pops it in his mouth before rushing out of the ramshackle maze. He zig-zags past sleeping mothers and babes. Everything here is laid bare, there are no doors and there’s nothing here to steal.
Some might call it a labor camp but to Washington, it’s home. Out of the maze now, he runs toward the line of humming shadows holding machetes. Washington grins up at one of his uncles.
Read More »
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