By: Samuel Ekanem As Mushood stood up under a cashew tree, where he’s been squatting for the past thirty minutes, a snag from the tree poked into his hair. Before then he’d held up his brown chinous trousers, toddled a…
By: Stephen Faulkner [The following is an audio transcription of transmissions to and from a fact finding mission to the test sight of a thermonuclear device on an undisclosed island in the Pacific Ocean]. ATOLL EAST ONE, this is ATOLL…
By: Michal Reiben I live with my grandparents in a poor area of London. My grandmother refuses to let me play with the children in the streets for she claims, “They are too rough.” In order to prevent me from…
By: Pat Spencer Security at our school was not good—no gates, alarms, or play yard monitors. Soweto could be a dangerous place for a child. Yet, the teachers didn’t care where we went or what we did once we left…
By Nolan Janssens As the engine gurgles grow louder, Ron’s memories gush into the present. He can smell his son’s floral, sweet hair from when he used to rinse it in the bathtub. He can hear his wife’s heaving…
By: Glenn John Arnowitz As I slowly faded away on the couch with the T.V. blurring to white noise and Aurora’s, our 13-year-old Maltese, furry back arched against my leg, Sue whispered softly into my ear, “Why don’t you…
By: Gaither Stewart Max and Greta agreed that everyone needs two main dramas in their lives, one in their public life, and the other in their private space. Max said that his public drama as a well-known, politically committed journalist…
By Copper Rose See Ellen get up in the morning and go to the kitchen to make coffee? She is complaining that no one loves her. At least not in the way she would like to be loved. See her…
By: Ruth Z Deming She couldn’t quite remember but thought this was her sixth day without food and water. Lydia was the picture of passivity, a leaf blown hither and thither down the street. A nurse mopped her cracked lips…
By Russ Bickerstaff It was a simple wooden box that had been painted black. That’s what he thought anyway. Wood. The thing was a one by one inch square box. Would’ve resembled a block of wood had it not been…