By: Luis Iglesias-Villacorta It was late in the evening, and they lay in bed feeling the warmth of each other. The moonlight shone on their feet and a breeze came in through the window. They faced each other and talked…

By: Peter Aronson The world was weighing heavy on Bert Stein, grabbing and twisting his mind, bending him sideways. He was having trouble thinking straight. There was no poker game that night on the commuter train leaving New York City,…

By: Cynthia Pitman Had there but been an Oracle sitting atop Fifth Mountain, I might have been warned: It is not the touch, it is the reachthat holds us captive –the gnawing ache that propels the handto stretch, to seek.That…

By Michael Pattinson Yumi met Claire the way a mirror catches light: unexpectedly, naturally, and immediately revealing. It was during an exhibition opening at a small gallery in Nakameguro, one that featured a collection themed around “Emotions with No Translation.” Claire stood…

   By: Yurii Tokar I first noticed third-grader Vitalik Karvatsky when I lined up the children in a column of two (to make it easier to count) in front of the bus. It was supposed to take twenty schoolchildren of…

By: Dalton Henderson “CRACK” “Don’t take ONE step closer!” The bullet sliced through the air above his head, a sound that had unfortunately become familiar. Luke Hendry ducked behind a wagon and rotated the cylinder of his revolver, half as…

By Mou Chakraborty 1 “Who walks through this storm? Is it you, Mother Durga, arriving at such an hour of ruin?” Sanatan whispered, his voice small against the roaring sky. Lightning tore the darkness apart, and his feverish ten-year-old daughter…

By: Neil Randall Over the last few weeks Luka had been having the strangest dreams about Arthur, his mother Darjia’s fiancé. In one dream, Arthur had gone off to fight in the war in Ukraine. In another, he was killed…

By: John Randolph The waves that lap below Calypso the eagle are barren, their surface glinting but offering no hint of fish. That’s the first thing she notices as she glides with the ease of ice on ice, her hollow…

By: Rupesh Ullal Kulapuram 1I was in Mangalore, a coastal town in Southern India. A vacation I would cherish each time I remembered it, without hesitation.The town hadn’t changed much over the years, at least not since the Millennium, if…