Fiction
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Water of the Womb (Side B)
She paces around her room, circles an invisible spot. She takes out her phone, dials half a number, then puts it down again. The room feels smaller than ever, and every circle shrinks it further—soon, she thinks, I’ll choke. With her eyes closed, she dials in her mother’s number, presses the call button, and holds… Continue reading
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All Up In Smoke (Side A)
Rome had been Sarah’s idea. She heard the name on a TV show, or learned about the city in history class—either way, it didn’t matter much, because Delilah concurred it was a great idea for summer vacation. She set aside two weeks (more than she originally wanted to vacation for, but the Colosseum was undergoing… Continue reading
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Atonement
It took almost a year for his hair to grow back. His mother took him to the barber, made him shave it all off with one of those fat, ugly razors, loud as a motorcycle. It was lice, or something like that. Who cares why! She promised to let me grow it out. His mother’s… Continue reading
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A Boy With No Name
It had been a hard day for Delilah, mother of two, married to a man who was almost a third. It had been a hard week, really—hence Jasnomir’s suggestion of a family holiday, because after all, the beaches were so nice that time of year, and they both worked so hard, and so on. Of… Continue reading
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☐ don’t cry
The doctor answers, soft and solemn. “Six to ten months.” A familiar wetness crawls down Michael’s cheeks, leaving behind a reddish itch. He reaches up to scratch his face, though it’s hard to tell whether he’s trying to sate this itch or trying to pull his skin apart from the seams. The cheek-wet, slimy sound… Continue reading
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I haven’t been sleeping well lately,
I tell her. “Do you wake up multiple times a night? Anything like that?” “No, not that.” I can’t explain it properly. “My dreams are more vivid than usual, I guess. It’s just very … disorienting. And I wake up exhausted. Nothing’s helped so far.” She nods, then resumes her writing, although I’ve no clue… Continue reading
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THALASSOPHILIA.
Being a middle child has its perks. For one, your older brother gets the brunt of the housework. No one expects anything from you. And you can walk around the beach long after nightfall and have nobody notice. There is nothing like the feeling of cold sand beneath your soles, of the million bright-eyed stars,… Continue reading