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..

He says he wants to quit smoking, but by now those words are perfunctory. Along with I need to go for a run and we..

She died at the age of thirty, at the clothesline in her own back yard on the first day of summer vacation. Dropped straight to..

The Garden Spy is from Aamer Hussein's anthology, Restless. The book is a collage of fugitive fictions, reminiscences of friends, and personal essays which, when read in sequence, offer an unofficial picture of one writer's private and public lives.

The moonlight shined on your brown hair, wet and wavy from the sandy river’s flow. My toes clung to the bark underneath my feet, and..

A thin line sometimes is all that separates genius from insanity.  A person with a gift for music is called a prodigy, while the person..

Sarah giggled as Ian breathed on her neck. “I forgot about how passionate you are. It’s like we’re teenagers all over again.” “We shouldn’t have..

A bustling, well-tarred road divides the educational potential of Kasipatti town by gender. On one side lies the Kasipatti Boys’ Senior Secondary School. On the..

Five glasses of lemon squash are placed in front of us. Mummy has taught me to never be the first one to reach out for..

“I’m coming in a minute. Hold the door for me, won’t you, Robi!” Madhura yelled from somewhere deep inside the house. Robi, her son, was..

Looking back, no-one could remember when the clown first appeared on the corner by the park. Everyone agreed that it was sometime last spring and,..

A lean man of average height with intelligent eyes set far apart, a narrow chin, and a mouth that sloped downward at its corners, August..

Every evening, she set up the altar afresh, because she couldn’t leave it out overnight. Even if it didn’t rain, the dew at dawn was..

“There’s not supposed to be a test,” I said. The man behind the table gave me a skewed look, his mouth turned in a malignant..

Alan finds a glade with no overhead branches that might come crashing down if winds blow up. But hard ground, rough with exposed pebbles, frustrates..

Jordan chewed on her pinky nail until it started to bleed.  “Shit!”  She reached over Avery’s lap, opened the glove box, and pulled out a..

When I was growing up, the Chicago suburbs of Chicago ranked within a hierarchy of goodness and desirability.  You had the ones on the bottom..

The summer after 6th grade, my lizard died. My parents had never owned reptiles before and the vet we took our dog to wouldn’t cremate..

“Hey! Where’d that woman put my fan?” Mimi yelled. “That woman—she took it. I know she did. She’s always taking my stuff.” Ruth held her..

A dozen donuts popped and sizzled in the deep fryer. As they floated into one another, Cosmo took out a pink box from under the..