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
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…
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.”…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…