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Fiction

Recent Issue

Illustration by Wesley Allsbrook

Cartagena, 2002

As Álvaro wandered the sweeping courtyard of his hotel, a colonial relic that had been renovated with a pool in preparation for the imminent wave of tourists, he had no choice but to accept the matter for what it was. The situation was grave. Very grave, he realized, aimlessly running his hand through one of the lobby’s marble fountains, stirring the peso coins below the water’s surface. 

Illustration by Wesley Allsbrook

Mnohaya Lita

Oksana and Ruslana, Ukrainian girls playing in the streets of Lwów: dolls and sticks and rope. Sunup-sunset, never a cloud in the sky, even when it rains. Always tying and buckling one another’s shoes. When they fall or get scraped, they kiss one another’s bruises, broken skin. Sticky lips and fingers swapping sweets: one girl, the other. 

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The Little Blue Horses

December 3, 2020

Rochelle and her mother lived in a large town that was on its way to becoming a small city. On her way to school, Rochelle often stopped to watch the crews of construction workers erect a new house in the hole where, only a few days before, one of her neighbors’ houses had loomed in sour glory, a car parked on its front lawn, silk flowers sprouting along its foundation like hair plugs. 

The Math of Living

December 3, 2020

I’ve been working for the Chicago Tribune for about a year when it strikes me that I will go home in six months. The ticket has been booked, and I’m ready. My boss has reviewed the JavaScript code and made his updates for the day. The code is in production. 

Polly, Looking

December 3, 2020

Polly’s problem after the accident, really one of her largest problems, was an inability to prune what she saw and what she thought, to stop her brain. She was both too easily distracted and too attentive. When she’d gotten out of the hospital, she’d gone on a looking binge. Ned brought her photography and gardening books, stacks of Sotheby’s catalogues he found at the local Goodwill store, piling them everywhere as a hedge against her glitches in language. Polly spent one unnerving afternoon flat on her back in the yard, watching trees encroach on clouds. There hadn’t been much to do but observe.