Fiction
Culpability
The police asked him “to come down the station”. Those were their exact words, as if spoken on a television show, as if there were a script for this kind of thing.
Section
Short Fiction
Showing 49-72 of 304 pieces
Fiction
The Long Death of Asif in the Garden
She left the next morning. Asif did not put up a fight. He simply sat at the kitchen table while she packed her things.
Fiction
Smoke and Mirrors
Yes, yes, she continued to work while I was building the company but look at what she has now? She drives a Mercedes!
Fiction
THE LITTLE GODDESS
As Didi walks away, you look around and notice the acadia tree by the neighbour’s yard. Two boys are gathered around it, struggling to reach the top branch which holds a prized mango.
Fiction
A Necessary Interlude
Mansi looks at them. They seem terrified. A sense of guilt starts seeping into her heart.
Fiction
Asit, the Horizontal
There was no brain death. Even the night of the full moon came and went, but his brain had other plans.
Fiction
Instructions on Falling
I had my first seizure age 14. This created another original fear.
Fiction
Chlorine Fever
Only the car door and that chain-link fence separate me from the most glorious
Fiction
Crossroads
She was determined to get the shop closed. It was destroying too many families.
Fiction
The Sinners, 1969
The next day I wrote myself a check for $400, detasseling money from the summer,
Fiction
Lost Souls
He had the same easy smile as Patrick, but his eyes were more calculating. They roved over her red flared pants, her pale blue shirt, her hair done up in ringlets.
Fiction
The Calf
Father had gotten the fabric from a business partner who had been to Bombay and it was rumored to be the most expensive of fabrics.
Fiction
Bad Boy
Earlier at dinner Johnny had been singled out, oldest boy, to perform. “Tell us what’s up in the sky at night, Johnny.”
Fiction
Drones
He watches it drop silently into the trench between the soldier’s legs. Yuri clenches, as if the grenade has dropped into his own lap. The Russian soldier scrambles to rise up as the grenade explodes. Yuri stubs out his cigarette in
Fiction
Epitaph
We found a middle-aged couple standing statue-like next to a new grave, a garish sign on the stonework reading Ghulam & Sons. I remember finding that interesting—a Muslim name in a Christian cemetery. Niharika said something about how sad the
Fiction
Dragon boy
I get hungry, so I swim close to the surface. When fish are together, turning in tight patterns for no reason other than to be social, it’s called shoaling. Birds I have seen, when I lived on land, do the same
Fiction
The Lasts of Her
A high-pitched staccato called out from the street behind, hawking kitchenware. Streets dotted with Durga puja pandals were in various stages of being undone. A few feet away, my mother’s rounded frame bent over a fruit cart, busy trying out little
Fiction
Wake
Sundar’s voice had risen. His shawl had slipped into his lap. He sat there in the wind, in his torn vest. He appeared smaller and shrunk, his thin bones poked out of his shoulders like a sparrow’s. A single teardrop quivered at the end of his mustache. A part of…
Fiction
Tic tac toe
He didn’t want to put out an ad. Online or newspaper, anywhere. The moment you do that, the phone will begin to ring constantly, he said. All kinds of people calling. Brokers! Who wants to deal with the brokers! He hoped to get someone through word of mouth. There were…
Fiction
A Living Otherness
Her deliberate pulling back of her spinning out-of-control thoughts, by latitudes and then by degrees, that bump into her present-day life. Of her stacking and re-stacking of newspapers by date. Of her pushing their edges into alignment. Perhaps, in a bid to guarantee to her life a shape of order…
Fiction
Still
“Pocket full of posies!” She watched as a little girl appeared two houses down, dancing down the sidewalk. She was holding a doll in one hand, waving it wildly over her head as she sang. When she reached the old woman’s house, the child spun around and threw the doll into the air.
Fiction
One Family
His aunt stayed angry until another American came to visit, a tall lady with yellow hair and lime green glasses. She took Sami back to the ruined home, snapped pictures of him in front of it. The tall lady paid his aunt a lot of money, enough to move to the mountain camp, where everything was better.
Fiction
Intruder
The dilemma in her dream woke her. She looked over and saw her husband, asleep. Her muscles ached from being unsettled. She looked around and saw a chasm of shifting shadows. Her chest felt tight, making it hard for her to catch a breath.
Fiction
The Trickster
The old man looked out his window – the elderly are just like cats in many ways: from the number of hours they sleep per day, to the habit of peering out of the window at any chance they get (that is, basically every minute).