Ayah was like no one I ever knew and Amma seemed relieved. Almost happy. She smiled more and went out with father, leaving me behind with Ayah who caught pigeons and mynahs, broke their slender necks with her bare hands, and cooked them on a makeshift mud stove in the backyard.

That's when I spot him among the crowd. A faded headband loses its battle with his locks, as if they are too rebellious to conform. The musician is looking straight ahead. He gives the impression of not necessarily watching the surf but simply looking beyond it. His eyes seem to be floating in space.

Not one soul from our beloved town, not even my own family, has thought to write. You are the first to extend even the feeblest of niceties and inquire about my well-being. And it means the world to me; for I am left so desperately alone with my thoughts and nobody to share them with.

Before heading out the door, I grab the wallet and the keys, and a few euro cent coins from the small pile of spare change. My eyes glaze over the underwear, a black pair, and they linger for a long moment on the quiet, scentless stain in the breadth of its twisted form. A strange, delicate sensuality.

‘Where are you from?’ he spoke slowly, digging deep into his thoughts for the only question he could think of to start a conversation, as if that skill of social inter reaction had long ago been placed in a far corner of his mind because he had convinced himself it was of no further use.

‘Who am I?’ The Princess asked the breeze. She asked the coloured waters, she asked the jewelled sky. She leant against the tree trunks, and sought her answers there. All she saw was beauty, all she saw was life though she didn’t recognize it so.

Brenda sat on the edge of the bed in her dead father’s room. She could still smell his piss. The staff at the nursing home..

Each day, after breakfast, but before lunch, I’d see her old car making its way up the dirt road, great clouds of dust surrounding the..

“Okay, mister. I’m intrigued. I should have known it would be something romantic.” Before leaving the house, I’d said, “Bring your boots and a sweater,” but I wouldn’t let on what I had planned. I should have told her, but communication was one of my weaknesses.

Today, at two months shy of sixteen, Thenmozhi finally felt like a woman. She assessed herself in the tall old mirror; black and red oxidisation..

Author’s Note: I am an enrolled Native American member from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in Mandaree, ND. My people are the Hidatsa. Missing Murdered..

John breathes in deeply, feeling his chest muscles expand. Blood rushes around his shoulder muscles. He feels good. He’s going home now and will be able to be there for a while because he was told something this morning that he never knew until then: he’s non-essential.

The tight fabric of the kite kicked against the wind and shot up into the sky. It was an exceptionally windy afternoon, but the sky..

It was time. Mama and Daddy said it was time.  I was almost nineteen years old.  I could haul wood, split logs, drive Daddy’s tractor,..

Alessa’s mother left for work at 6 a.m. cada día, not a minute too early and not a segundo too late. Within fifteen minutes, Alessa..

When he fell, Frank Wetherell became the sixty-first worker to die in the construction of the tower.  It would be another year and three weeks..

Sometimes I’d worry that the greatest thing about me, the thing the world would remember me for above all else, was Dad. Mom was great..

The headline was the death of someone the media called a ‘bright young actor’. Abha took a sip of her morning tea and went on..

My mother once called me Hannah, though she didn’t know it was me. A future preacher once called me a bribe from Satan as I..

Our world is cold and gray. Grandmother tells me it wasn’t always like this. I find that hard to believe. This is all my brother..

The aging Ford shudders its way down US 95 just south of Rome, Oregon with a rust-colored optimism I do not share. Woven seat covers,..

“God, I want your hair,” Mary shouts as I deliver five bags of groceries to her. Her wrinkly white index finger is pointing at my..