FICTION
The Bad One by Sonny Buttar
Prologue There is a story our parents told us, only once. When they received their immigration papers from America, they considered leaving one of us behind in Pakistan to live with relatives, believing that one child would be…
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The Golden Suicides by Melissa Yancy
“It is possible to control Los Angeles by being the one with the most vivid fantasy about it.” —Theresa Duncan, The Wit of the Staircase 1992 My brother joined the world’s smallest cult. There were precisely two members:…
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My Demons by Jill Rosenberg
The night before I start treatment at Harrington, Raffi and I go to Foxy Night at the Cock in the East Village. We have to wait in line to get in. It’s eleven, and it’s dark, but it’s lit-up city…
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Sacrament, Living on Stilts, & Oh my god your voice sounds so haole by Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Sacrament Pua shifts in the pew as the water and bread are passed out by the chosen boys, her mu’umu’u scratchy and stiff against her skin. She wonders if it will be white or wheat bread. Her mother pinches…
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Wet by Jaclyn Desforges
Mother, this house is full of babies. From the mouth of the kitchen I hear their cooing and from the top of the staircase I hear their cooing. I stand and hear their cooing from the living room. I…
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“Blackbird” by Chinonyelum Anyichie
Ifunanya called you ugly, and you answered her with a slap. A slap so charged it was the envy of thunder, and you didn’t even care you were in Chuckies, the school restaurant, teeming with people eating, laughing, coming…
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A Line of Wings by Uyen Phuong Dang
Dau used to live in the apartment below me. He had skin so dry it fell like leaves on a windy day, so much he pixelated his floor with tiny fog-colored flakes, each thin and flappy as a plastic…
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The Gateway by Kathy Fish
John and Lara’s daughter had up and married a perfect stranger. She’d met the fellow at a gallery opening only two weeks before. The nuptials had taken place in a courthouse. On the phone Liza told them sure, of…
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Cillian by Janey Tracey
When the night was over, and everyone else had gone, Cillian took me to an Irish bar, scratched the small of my back, and told me his theory of everything. He told me political polarization was related to wave…
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North Country, New York by Gabrielle Hovendon
In dreams at the backs of my eyelids, I was still twelve years old traveling in a car luminous with anger. I could feel the slow braking as we turned onto the county highway. I could see the horizon…
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