Photo by David / Stock.adobe.com
Things about the world that we learn at school: Penguins inhabit icescapes, they live closely packed together. Penguins dwell in the Antarctic, where they will neve…
Fiction
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Photo by ElenaMasiutkina / Stock.adobe.com A Russian police officer tracks the surprising release of a prisoner to fight in the war against Ukraine. Recalling the prisoner’s capture, the office…
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Photo by Cavan for Adobe / Stock.adobe.com In this flash fiction from Argentina, a woman with a long list of symptoms empties herself during a medical exam.“Describe your symptoms for me.”…
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Photo by Ahmed Zayan / Unsplash.com A man shelters from war in Gaza with his ailing fish, his mind turning to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.Do you see this little fish? Look at him.…
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Photo by Cristina Conti / Stock.adobe.com. “Death by literature”? Despite her fatal diagnosis, Leila Ross clung to reading till the very end.These were the final lines of Mum’s request:Alt…
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Portrait d’Eleno de Céspedes by LLarchevêque / Wikimedia In sixteenth-century Spain, the Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition is facing one of its most complicated cases ever: Elena Césped…
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Photo by Rey Seven / Unsplash.com Avid reader Andor Femin and the narrator of this flash fiction don’t always see eye to eye, but their observations about reading are always amusing. Andor Femin…
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Photo by PR Image Factory / Stock.adobe.com. A CT scan leads to a surprising discovery in this short fiction from Australia. Clara’s first (and last) acting role was that of Medusa, the Greek mon…
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Digital illustration by Emily Holson, Eyes of the Withholder (2024) Tensions build between a child and a tree, both grappling for the attention of a mother. The lemon tree was a gift fro…
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Photo by Carl Raw / Unsplash.com Welcome to Game Land, where your every pleasure will be satisfied. The substitute asked the pupils to say their names. There was Onni, May, Jonna, Helmi, and Her…
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Photo of Ogiek animal horn by Survival International © Survivalinternational.org Deciding between his mother’s sweet love and his father’s conditional approval, Kimurguk endures a harrowing rite o…
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Анна Удод - stock.adobe.com I. Northward January 2, Arrival By night they flew, korvat kuin korpit, ears like ravens, who hear a bark. They listened to the forest rustling; to the storms in…
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The Woman He was a disgrace of a man. The lowest of the low. He pounded the table, every blow making the kerosene lamp shudder. The noise was accompanied by intermittent bursts of neurotic ranting…
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An ordinary day in Ávila darkens following a neighborly intervention. Setting a succulent into the window box outside, Maria spotted the boys from 2D in the courtyard below. Three brick buildings an…
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Photo by Joachim Pressl on Unsplash A few days into a third lockdown, a cat and her human companion have differing views about how to handle an army of slugs attacking the petunias.…
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Photo by Abigail Keenan on Unsplash A young woman with two degrees and no job hits the streets of Palermo looking for work with only a Dorothy Parker poem to sustain her. Ratty sli…
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In Colombian writer Octavio Escobar Giraldo’s first publication in English, it isn’t only the parishioner saying her Hail Marys. “I confess, Father. I confess that I am happy about the dea…
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In this fraught meeting between father and daughter, a woman rescues what she can from an estranged relationship. two weeks ago, when i saw my father, i wrote, “dear diary, this morning wh…
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A woman gives birth in a room where all the windows are covered with pages of a book to be burned. The woman inside, the women outside: all wait for the author. Luz is going to scream. She…
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A girl executes her escape plan, with one unexpected twist at the end. She walks through the house. It’s quiet now; everyone’s sleeping. Behind the bedroom door she can hear her father’s d…
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Photo by Ivy Yung on Unsplash Written in the early stages of the pandemic, this fairytale-like story finds a man looking to shape his environment to reflect the fragility of life—one scre…
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Photo by Greg Rakozy & Alfons Morales on Unsplash In this short story from Japan, the narrator—who is disappearing organ by organ—dissolves into a library as encompassing as the cosmo…
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In a dimly lit crypt, a woman loses her way and finds her thoughts toggling between a mysterious man in the dark tunnel and a childhood friend. The sun was setting when she got off the bus…
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Artwork from Lwapula Province / Courtesy of Dr. Christine Saidi, Kutztown University The Aushi are an ethnolinguistic group located in the Lwapula Province of the Republic of Zambia and i…
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A woman’s writing, and routine, are disrupted when she meets a man on a bicycle. The signorina Maddalena Rubí has a passion for poetry. She writes a little after dinner each night, before…