May 16, 2022
The Tale of the Black Worry Beads
The marines of the Barbwire Circle had long been the enemies of the Taliban, who lived across the river. The rivals traded gunshots through the day, and they shelled each […]
May 16, 2022
The Arm of the Lord
I was seven years old, maybe eight, and my father and I were staying at a strange house again. How long had we been driving? The days spun loose behind […]
May 16, 2022
Animal Days
Mr. Bill Nobody stayed that summer. The town emptied. Hand-lettered For Rent signs appeared in every fifth yard. Construction work began and ended and began again, a backhoe parked drowsily […]
March 2, 2022
The Allens
At night the store had music. Nobody cared when my shirt was untucked, or if my shoes weren’t black. Nobody told me to hurry. All night I’d stock produce, stack […]
March 2, 2022
Ink
Ink Ink obscures its nature. Let’s focus on the substance itself, rather than the marks it makes. Ink can be blue or black, or any color, even white. It can […]
January 11, 2022
Grand Mal
My freshman roommate, Karlie, claimed that if you were being attacked, you had to throw a fit: fall to the ground, froth at the mouth, growl, fling your arms, spout […]
January 11, 2022
Bloodlines
We all want to be White. We claim we are descended from Portuguese colonizers who assaulted Malaysia’s shores in the fifteen hundreds with guns and ships and an ambition to […]
November 8, 2021
The Good People of Lahore
The social chair of the Ladies of the New Rule is on her sofa sipping wine and embroidering onto a pillowcase the group’s emblem, tea roses circling a crown, when […]
September 9, 2021
The Perfumer
Doña Nigella Tomasina came to her profession through her nose, aquiline and robust, a nose that could “distinguish black from white and happiness from brokenness,” as her proud grandmother would […]
September 9, 2021
Selections from The Collected Works of Walter Potter
Lot 1: English School, Nineteenth Century. Portrait of Walter Potter Here he is: the man himself. The auctioneer turns to look on the portrait. Museum owner and taxidermist, in profile. […]
September 9, 2021
Chamonix
No one drinks liquor in this tourist town. We’re walled in by mountains, the town itself like the grit at the bottom of a cup. But you can tell people […]
July 1, 2021
Adult Swim
Harv proposed to Mom by text before people were even social distancing. At that point, you could still go to the grocery without wearing a mask. Mom texted back she’d […]