Fiction
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Among the Believers
Nafisa walks among the pilgrims, her steps slow because she is in no hurry. The Hotel Dar-es-Salam which has been her home for the past four months is only a ten minute walk from the Haram and the stroll down…
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Sunday Scaries: The Body Monstrous
New teeth pierced my gums, razor-sharp and dripping with my own blood. Talons ruptured the tips of my fingers. Wings unfurled from my collarbones and I spread them wide, knocking over bowls and pans, casting shadows of leather and bone.…
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The Rooster
“My parents joked about the incident for days, until the Tangshan Earthquake took over the news and quickly pushed it from their minds. The chick that had slipped Mimi’s mouth turned out to be a rooster, growing a bright comb…
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Sunday Scaries: “The Ballad of Gloria Vetrana”
At first, the reports weren’t especially interesting: unconvincing testimonies of vague phenomena. Folks reported feeling nauseated and feverish. Tinnitus. Migraines. Some reported electrical disturbances, lights straining brown as the power waned.
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The Part That Hurts
She had been a good friend when she had to be, and somewhere in all of this time we’d forgotten how to speak to one another. Now, she has come to me in this early stage of grief. I wasn’t…
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Pop-Tart Crumb
“All my life is telling obstacle from sweetness and i must smell to know – i smell everything for its scents – i smell rock most often – wet wood – i smell linoleum, hair of dog, smudge of olive…
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Ancestral Milk
“Zoe feels panic rising from her pelvic floor, then guilt and more anxiety about her own animal response, the cortisol bath leaching into her milk which will then permeate Pippa’s gut and become part of her DNA and Pippa’s entire…
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Bad Artist
That was summer. In the autumn, you fly to see him. The address is a narrow lane off the canal, where tourists recede and street signs wilt in their place. The buzzer is broken, he has to come down to…
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Men in Black Coats
I probably should have lied and told him it got dangerous. I lived alone. No safety net of a brother or a boyfriend to fall back on if a murderer broke into the building and got past the doorman, past…
