A beastly cry tore the morning silence. Kurui’s hand froze on the bookcase in the living room. He walked outside, with his face unwashed, and still dressed in the faded black polo shirt and grey flannel trousers he had slept in. He stood for a while on the square, earthen depression surrounding the house and […]
Contributors 94
Kerri French: Cherry Hill
I stood with my back to the cathedral, the streets of the town no busier than before. Narrowboats lined the river where branches swept the water, the house where we first lived steps from the path of the flood. From the top window, I used to listen for the call of the trains, the baby […]
J.M. Farkas: Everywhere Except Idaho
I am lonely as a hamburger, drunk as a cocktail napkin. Sunk as the mother trying to out-hot her teenage daughter on this carpeted dance floor in matching spandex tube tops. The bartender dons a bowtie, spills over and over, the details of his sordid divorce, pours that Same Old Same Old into anyone spongy […]
Cónal Creedon: Dockets and Dowels
Like my grandda and my grandda’s da, my dad was a cabinetmaker, a master craftsman. The lads up in Mulla’s Yard said he was a genius; he could make a full piece of furniture, no nails or screws used. I swear to God, you can never really know what goes on in another man’s head, […]
Clara Changxin Fang: The Other Side of Night
The Buddhist monk instructs us to pay attention to our breathing but all I can think of is the way you touched me before I left for Utah, like oil splattered on the wrist, like snow falling on bare shoulders. For the next two years the great bowl of the Salt Lake valley was cleft […]
Clara Changxin Fang: Don’t Go Away
The night shakes its wings and the sky hasn’t folded its whitewashed lawn chairs. Hyacinths in the garden gleam like pale fire, the forests are crammed with shadowy fish. I heard you say: I don’t know when I’m coming back. Once, I lost my car in a strange city while we circled the streets searching […]