“You’re a kid,” he says, and his voice is so absolute that it leaves no room for argument.
Meesha isn’t sure she’d be able to argue even if he sounded uncertain. Her eyes are blank, her lips locked in that little downward position that everyone claims neutral (that everyone knows is actually a faint frown), and as she stands in front of this leathery heap of a man, she can’t bring herself to care that she’s been caught.
Continue reading “Room For the Dead, Room For the Damned by Ella Paul”
So is it true, the girl with electric blue hair began in mock contemplation, that toilets flush the other way in New Zealand? She set a half empty bottle of Carlsberg on the bar and looked at Connor, her face all anticipation. Connor was absorbed in pulling the perfect pint of Guinness. Not the first time he’d been asked this. The brew settled, he removed the excess foam with the deft swipe of a plastic spatula and placed the beer on a coaster in front of the girl’s aloof boyfriend. He could smell the leather of their jackets. Toilets, sinks, showers, Connor answered, nodding for emphasis. He knew it was a myth. Satisfied, the girl slapped her boyfriend lightly on the arm as if she’d just won a bet.
Continue reading “Volunteer by David Patten”
“Wake up, rascals. See who is here,” trills our aunt Sivamathi.
Her high-pitched shrill vibrates off her tongue against her palate and pierces through our sleep.
“It must be Muttu, that rickety idiot, come to torture us with puzzles,” I guess.
With sunshine trembling on our eyelashes and seeping into our bodies, we two brothers continue to stretch ourselves lazily.
Continue reading “Bulls and Blood, Line and Lineage by Chitra Gopalakrishnan”
Callahan wishes the voices would stop, but they never do. Some are soft as a caress, some are screamed out shrill. Some are wistful sighs of longing, some are determined mantras. Some are woven with glee, some are drowned in sorrow. No matter what they are, they never stop, swirling around his head, taunting him to listen, daring him to comfort, daring him to help, daring him to laugh, daring him to cry.
Continue reading “Autumn Eyes Lost, Autumn Eyes found by Anmitra Jagannathan”
It Hurts When I Do That…
Everyone has a touch of hypochondria in them. I have more than a fair share; for me the constant certainty that I am dying began in the third grade.
Our teacher, Mrs. West, assigned desks in alphabetical order. With an “A” surname not only did I usually set the bar for futility in P.E. (for I was and remain as athletic as a cactus), but when the subject was arranged-seating, I’d be in the first row, close to, if not in front. For five years (until her family relocated to California after the fifth grade) I could count on Veronica Allen to be seated in front of me. Ronnie and I were friends because I made her look like Wonder Woman when we had to fall in line for chin-ups in second grade (she sort of did one, then I began my athletic career as The Reliable Zero–I considered it my way of making the other kids feel better about themselves).
Continue reading “Week 380- Doctor, Doctor Please; The Week That Is and Hey Could You Play Another Someone Diseased Somebody Wrong Song?”
I leaned against the largest maple tree, planted hungry years before upon a leech trench in my back yard, watching my going out of me at play and shining the souls of mirrors back, telling each other what we knew.
I loved him from the tree, later a window dark-squared above the wide grass, as I leaned toward his hands moving out of himself, making; and the corners of the house, the inners and outers hammered upwards from my hand in late repair.
Continue reading “Flashing Mirrors at a House Built in 1742 by Tom Sheehan”
A brightly hued rag covered Kanmani’s eyes as she hopped daintily over the grid of numbered squares drawn hurriedly on the stone floor. “Right-a?” she asked, pausing on one leg. “Right-u”, came the response, confirming that Kanmani was within the boundaries of a square. This “Right-a/Right-u” exchange continued a few more times, until Kanmani stepped on a line and lost her chance. It was Kaveri’s turn now. Kaveri removed Kanmani’s blindfold, placed her gently on a chair nearby, and proceeded to tie the rag over her own eyes. She ensured that her blindfold was loose enough to allow her to catch little peeks through the cracks. Closing her eyes tight, she hopped to what she thought was the first square and paused, balancing gingerly on one foot. “Right-a?”, she asked, opening her eyes wide enough to peek at the floor, checking whether her foot was within the square. “Right-u”, answered Kanmani. Kaveri smiled, closed her eyes and hopped to the next square. She loved playing this game called “Paandi”, with Kanmani.
Continue reading “The Kumari by Naga Vydyanathan”
Kora can neither stand nor fall. The Earth is shifting up, down, across. It is far more befuddling than frightening until the ground opens under her. Terror consumes her as she plunges into the chasm.
Continue reading “Infection by Frederick K Foote”
A hollowness opened in me as I entered the house, a space within a space, as if I already sensed what had been lost. In the TV room the stuffed toys lay piled almost to the ceiling, their little heads and tiny eyes facing up. A whirring in my ears began, from the space within a space, “hello?” I said and the sound disappeared. Where were the cats? I paused at at the stairs to the second floor. The steps up seemed staged, like a movie set, “Follow us, the show’s about to begin,” said the hollow in my head. I went to the kitchen instead.
“I will not give in yet,” I thought, though that hollow space signalled over and over again “this is not going to be good.”
Continue reading “I Love You More by Harrison Kim”
World War I was more than 20 years down the drain for most people, but Tommy Heffernan was looking up, with a slight discrediting look on his face, at Tim Kiely the bartender who was talking to or, more to the point, entertaining three drinkers sitting at his bar in Kiely’s Pub. The 2 o’clock sun bounced off Highland Avenue west of Malden Square and tried to come in through the windows shaded from years of accumulated cigarette smoke. Like always, Kiely couldn’t whisper; too much beyond his control, too much audience pull.“I know you boys come all the way from Somerville to hear the stories that grow from here. They come, glory be, without warning, like a knock on the door, trick or treat. For instance, take that lad down there at the other end of the bar, Tommy Heffernan, Colum’s boy. He was scorched in France, really bad. WW I’s green stuff they say. How many years ago’s that? He’s not worked a hard day since he come home from the Kaiser’s playground and might never work a hard day in all his life remaining, though the boy can put away a pint or two with the best of them. This I’ll tell you, though, that this lad, sick or not, for whatever ails him that the gas brought too close, has the softest hands in the whole world. Watch out for the cards in his hands, or a needle and thread.”
He tittered with his half laugh.
Continue reading “The Softest Hands by Tom Sheehan”
literally stories 