Category: Fiction

At first, when I held you in my hands, you drew into your shell. But, after some time, you stuck out your head and looked at me with these tiny, ringed eyes. I petted you and asked if you could feel my touch because I read that turtle shells are like skin, living cells crackling…

This little girl, who has no right to remind you of yourself, stands whining by the terrarium with grubby fingers smearing the glass. Grubby, you think, not to mean dirty or soiled but instead as a term of relative comparison to denote resemblance to a grub. You have not yet chosen the week’s vocabulary words…

The rain drives so hard that Nick imagines it puncturing the roof of the Saab. He peers through the wiper blades swatting at the windshield and rechecks the gas level. The Texaco shouldn’t be much farther. Just beyond the McDonalds and that bail bonds place. If only they could get through this intersection. He’s lost…

I.   Lexi was reluctant to be Matthias Gerner’s accompanist for the gala concert, but not for the reasons her colleagues at the Manila Youth Conservatory imagined. It wasn’t that she missed the limelight and wanted center stage for herself, or that she had nerves about performing. She simply didn’t know if she could trust…

I Justine is nineteen and living in Toronto when she learns her mother has been killed. It’s November and she’s pretending to love chemistry when what she really wants to do is act. She works at a pub to pay for the scene study classes that she takes in secret. Her sister is the only…

Myra and Tom fanned their faces with wadded newspapers as they made their way through Jaipur’s City Palace. The tour guide aggressively ushered them through the palace, saying “Take picture take picture take picture,” seizing their camera and asking them to “Cheeseburger smile” in front of the marble elephants, Diwan-I-Khas, huge silver water jugs one…

Though you grew up in the city, you always liked to look up at the stars. On those rare visits to Grandma in the country, you’d always take the time to sit on the porch at night once she fell asleep, open-mouthed in front of the TV. Lightning bugs would pop off like spark plugs…

“Promise,” she said. Usually her eyes reminded him of icicles. Gray-blue and bright in the light, but today they glared. Vince strummed his thumb across the top of Ava’s hand. The tendons were raised like guitar strings. “Promise,” she repeated. “Just us.” Vince’s mind was clouded with static and he struggled to organize his thoughts.…