Tag: family

All Stories, Fantasy

Xius and his Flying Carpet Emporium by Hermester Barrington

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Xius waved at the family driving away in their BMW M3—it had license plate frames from his cousin’s dealership—with their brand new Fénix rolled up and strapped to its roof. He locked his showroom’s front door, hit a switch, and the sign reading “New and Used Flying Carpets!” flickered out. Sighing as he tried to ignore the worn linoleum, and the faded map of the world, marked with places such as El Dorado, Xanadu, and St. Brigid’s Well, he gathered together his receipts—paperwork would take him about two hours, he figured. He smiled as he thought of his daughters nagging him to get a computer, but he didn’t see the point, now—he had been at this for almost forty years, and every day seemed as if it might be the last.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Winter Solstice by Mary Jo Thomas

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Police had already handcuffed Roy Stafford and were placing him inside a cruiser when Susan Roberts arrived. Betty Stafford lay on a gurney that the EMS team hurriedly lifted into their van. Flashing her ID to one of the cops, Susan asked, “Where are the girls? Are they OK?”

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All Stories, Fantasy

Kiri by Sarah Hozumi

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Oslac toiled his way through the woods beyond his home, stopping to allow his daughter to catch up to him but not daring to look at her. His ears faithfully absorbed the beautiful sounds of his daughter humming to herself while picking her way among the roots of the trees, and his heart began to splinter. They had been walking for half a day now, their pace waylaid by Kiri’s wandering attention. He heard her attempt to whistle at a bird in a low branch nearby and thought about just turning home.

Still, the thing had to be done.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Super Moon in Rome by David Levine

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Two in the morning. The air was luminous, chalky, bloated with humidity. The smoke detector was a broken stoplight, stuck on green all night.  Exhausted, jet lagged, eyeing the light, I thought of my ninety-eight-year-old grandmother Ida.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

The Scent of Eternity by Susmita Mukherjee

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In the summer of 1997, when most men of his age were discovering the quiet dignity of cholesterol, Gopal Banerjee decided to make a perfume that would outlive death itself. Not metaphorically, he meant it quite literally. “Eternity,” he called it, though Calvin Klein had already used the name. Gopal didn’t mind; he believed trademarks were for those who lacked vision.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Fisheye by Jade Lacy

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The last time we stayed at Popo’s house, I was five years old, still in the cradle of memory when truth and story become mixed up in an inseparable mosaic. It’s hard to say what I remember and what has been spun to me as a family tale, more real than my own hazy recollection. Maybe if I had been older I would have more to tell. Or maybe it would be all the more clear how much of Popo’s life had slipped through the cracks of my young, distracted mind.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Cost of Dying by Kayla Cain

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It’s like sitting in a cozy lamplit living room. A couch. A loveseat. Two cushioned chairs facing a mounted screen. Instead of a coffee table, though, a desk stands in the center, and instead of our favorite sitcom, we scroll through an electronic contract.

Funeral Agreement with Authorization to Prepare a Decedent for Burial

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Riptide by Manoela Torres

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Today we celebrate Bella. Our beautiful, breathtaking, beloved, buried Bella. Our connection was less affection than ancestry, the sort of intimacy that shared blood makes inevitable.

Born less than two months apart, we were always together. Twins they called us, until our features grew too distinguishable to sustain the lie. I was small and sturdy, my skin the deep tan that made Nai Nai click her tongue and mutter about rice pickers and fieldwork. Bella possessed that particular alchemy of mixed blood: jade eyes set in porcelain skin, her father’s Scandinavian height stretched over her mother’s delicate Chinese bones, creating something that demanded worship.

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