Photo by Myrtle Schilling / Unsplash
I’ve seen it more than once: the raised axe
swings and chops into the last remnant;
Lying still in the dirt
is the moving, glowing crown.
– R…
Fiction
Meytar Moran, The Stage, from the Black Magic series (2014–2015), meytarmoran.com In a field near the Gaza Strip, a missile strike, visions, and onlookers searching for an explan…
Painted Cats by sjrankin is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 Hoping battles knowing in this three-act seduction (spoiler alert: there’s a cat in the story). 1. Try to seduce som…
“We Don't Care Broken Window Theory” by Zak MC is licensed under CC by SA 2.0 Old Acquaintance Having met by chance, they hugged. “Long time no see!” the men chorused. They caught up, exchan…
“I love you" by @Doug88888 / flickr People believe, Marie thinks, even when there’s no proof. You believe because you imagine. But is imagination enough to live by? Die. Th…
Photo by the camera is a toy / Flickr An artist of stillness, her life a dance of immobility, performs the art of losing in a plaza. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, and the show…
Calle del Cristo, San Juan Antiguo, Puerto Rico. Photo by Nikita Castro / Unsplash After a hurricane, two young boys find some things, but not everything, changed. At house T24 of B…
Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash After multiple catastrophes and faced with the pandemic lockdown—the pain of fear, of austerity, and of abandon—a woman needing to feel loved and erotici…
Castillo San Felipe del Morro / Photo by Terry Ott / Flickr A woman, her caregiver, and a daily walk to the edge of a cliff overlooking an estuary. 1 I’ve told Cam…
Illustration by Tom Hart / Flickr After Hurricane Maria, in a hospital with no electrical power, a man seeks medical treatment for his father as the US president visits the city. “P…
Image: Tim Mossholder / Unsplash A daughter faces a dilemma when the coronavirus creates an opportunity. When I found out that the virus from China made its way to Puerto Rico…
Photo: dotpolka / Flickr A sofa, the site of a family’s history, receives and gives a second life. My parents conceived me on a sofa in a department store. My mother worked in the u…
Photo: César Couto / Unsplash Stuck in traffic during a downpour, a driver faces a peculiar dilemma. Juan Carlos saw the man die in the car to the right, in the middle of a bu…
Rosaura Rodríguez, La ciudad es salvaje (The city is savage) Catastrophes of biblical proportions lead one San Juan woman to the promised land: Orlando. [57]…
In the Karl Liebknecht House in Leipzig, Germany, thirty people of various nationalities are seated around an improvised table on the stage in the Events Hall, interpreters behind them, some wit…
Photo: Elia Pellegrini / Unsplash Over time you realize that the only thing you can do is to comfort. Before my grandmother passed, having already dwindled away, she would hold my hand tightl…
Photo: Oxa Roxa / Unsplash Looking for her dead wife, a woman finds an unusual bonsai with mythical connections and a few complaints. Laurel, without shoes, wandered aimlessly from…
Portrait number four from Second Skins Collection, photography by Miguel Vallinas Prieto In this Kafkaesque story, two startling discoveries follow the transformation of a man’s…
Photo: Mark Gunn / Flickr Papa received a scythe from a co-worker as a present. Mama is horrified. “A scythe in our house?” Papa wants to reassure her: “I’ve set it in the cellar.” “Fo…
Photo: Oxa Roxa / Unsplash The students noticed an opening at the bottom of the fence, a tear in the wires. On the other side of the fence was the outside, which they only saw from the bu…
Photo: cyclonebill / Flickr In this political satire, an innocent meal becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. The maître d’, who was called over by the waiter, asked: “Is there a proble…
Photo: Rachel Lees / Unsplash A couple in their kitchen. Either the man or the woman speaks first. We should make sure they’ve inspected the car. I guess they probabl…
Photo: Zhenyu Luo / Unsplash Down the first twist of stairs and Josie hears she is not alone, like hearing a tree in the wind beyond her bedroom window. The old man: splay-legged before his d…
Photo: Mark Eder / Unsplash Margherita was tiny and hunched. She had light eyes, and always—summer or winter—wore a shawl she kept closed on her chest with her hand, as if clutching a necklac…
Painting by Sara Jimenez In this story by an indigenous writer from the southern Philippines, a crime continues to haunt a local’s thoughts. It had been some time since Lolo Bebe pa…
