By Chancellorsville, his camera had grown heavier, the straps of its leather case cutting into his shoulders, the sway of its brass and wood bruising his ribs. Among the war dead he had photographed, he lacked one, his sister, Ana, who had died two years earlier in a field hospital outside Fredericksburg. Fever, they’d said. By the time he found her name in a ledger, no body was left to claim.
Continue reading “Ana in the Negative by R W Owen”
There is nothing more dangerous than a woman who dances.
Pablo Agüero and Katell Guillou, Akelarre (screenplay)
On the night of her sixteenth birthday, Garazi was awakened from deep sleep by an apparition, an ill-defined smoky shade with wavering contours that appeared at the foot of her bed. The intruder spoke in a flat voice that lacked warmth or inflection: “Get up, Garazi, for you are no longer a child, and come to celebrate your passage into womanhood!”
Continue reading “The Akelarre by Matias Travieso-Diaz”
A homeless man is lying across the railroad tracks. A green bicycle is parked sideways on the rocks. “What the hell is this,” I say to Jonny. We’re grinding along the parallel lines in an old beater I just bought last night.
“Helluva deal,” says Jonny, smiling, then he gives him a little toast, and takes a big gurgling gulp of Budweiser, and belches from deep in his stomach. A beery cheeseburger and onions drift towards me. “Look’s like he’s homeless…” then he says, “Homes.”
Around town you might see this homeless man or his twin, sometimes they’re female (they all look alike in their dirty Carhartt’s), pumping their bike or shopping cart from trash can to trash can sorting out spaghetti-sauced aluminum GOLD.
Continue reading “Fire Eating by Christopher Ananias”
The same place: Hampstead Heath. A misty London morning, the rising sun at times peeking through the pea-souper; joggers, dog walkers, city slickers taking a short cut, coffees in hand, trailed by confused people with no inclination to be doing anything, but stumbling around like zombies searching for a familiar face. Me: Canon in hand, covert, waiting for that magic pic to arrive – I’m poised.
Continue reading “The Forever Bench by SJ Butler “
Mei bought these silkworms on Taobao. She said a silkworm’s life cycle lasted four to six weeks, and by the time this batch spun their silk, her body would more or less be properly conditioned again too. But what she bought were not ordinary silkworms. They were advertised as “colored silkworms.” In the online shop photos they looked beautiful, bright red and green, but when they arrived, they looked nothing like the pictures. They lay sluggishly inside a Wing Wah mooncake tin, the one I had lent her, like specimens soaked in formalin for three days. Their bluish gray skin was covered in irregular dark spots, as if someone had stabbed them with pencil tips, or as if they had some kind of skin disease. Some had strange lumpy growths rising from their backs. Me said these were called “dragon horn silkworms,” a rare breed whose silk came out golden yellow. But when I looked at those bumps, all I could think of were the scabs left after squeezing pimples. Mei said the cocoons could sell for a good price, but when she poured them into the mooncake tin, three were already dead. The rest writhed weakly, as if barely clinging to life. Mei said she had consulted Baidu and planned to shine blue light on them to stimulate their growth.
Continue reading “Blue Light by Huina Zheng”
He wasn’t a special man. He was just a guy with an above average trashcan. It might merit an even higher title than “above average.” Consider it magical. Yes, magical.
Continue reading “Gary’s Magic Trashcan by Peter Biles”
Mate is so much more than a drink — it’s a living tradition
that binds us to each other and the land.
Fabiana Pose
The Eurovision Song Contest winner that year was a stunning brunette from Paraguay, Gisela Ortiz, who represented Spain in the contest and sang an enthralling guarania (romantic ballad) that won the acclaim of a large segment of the voting public and the members of a jury of music industry professionals. She soon turned her meteoric rise to fame into cash by tirelessly promoting a variety of products and services.
Continue reading “Death in a Gourd by Matias Travieso-Diaz”
AUGUST 2021:
“My will is your authority,” says Vern, the bishop’s mitre wearing business dealer. His blue veined cheeks turn red, then purple, as he laughs until the tears flow, rocking back and forth, holding his sides in front of red-bearded, yellow-toothed twenty-seven-year-old Alex as they sit making connections and trades in the rusted bus that is Vern’s hoarder home. “Hold the mirror higher,” Vern commands, and Alex does. He sees the red capillaries bulge under Vern’s eyes. “Where did you get this holy hat?” the dealer asks.
Continue reading “Between Vern and Alex by Harrison Kim”
This is the first time we’ve made eye contact, but I’ve been looking at his face my entire life. I know those narrow, close-set eyes almost as well as my own. Eyes so blue they almost glow in direct light. Eyes I always had to turn away from because of the way they constantly laughed at me.
All these years, they’ve never stopped laughing at me.
Continue reading “Pissing Bullies by Rasmenia Massoud”
“You scary pretty,” she said, settling onto the lattice bench. She wasn’t her, but she looked at me the same way, as if she knew the part. Ever since Celeste’s funeral, I kept finding her inside strangers. I checked the time out of habit. The second hand trembled near the six. The woman was small inside a brown trench coat made of possum fur, seams hand-stitched with thick black wax taxidermy thread. The woman kept her eye on me, then threw a coin into the fountain beside us.
Continue reading “Inside the Possum Coat by Patrick G. Roland”
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