Fiction
Animal Rhetoric
I. Thesis The week before Graham Bryant killed his girlfriend, he turned in a paper to my first-year composition course, Animals and Society, arguing that dogs should have the same rights as human beings. The first paragraph reads: It is agreed there are basic rights that everybody shares. This is supported by the U.S. Declaration of Independence (Wikipedia). For …
The Shadow
Joshua Leon felt his body tense in his uniform as the plane jangled to the drop point, and the rest of his unit held onto their seats. The flurry of the aircraft carrier was behind them, and now they were concentrating for the mission, the blue waters of the Caribbean turning over below them. There were …
Vegetarian
Ah Hui prides herself on keeping up with the times. It is because of keeping up with the times that she is able to research the most effective ways of inducing anaphylaxis from the comfort of her own bedroom. Wikipedia confirms that this allergic reaction can be triggered by many foods, including wheat, seafood, milk, …
Clean
Margo wanted to shower on a train. She pictured it thusly: a compact stall, neat, clean, maybe a seat in the corner. Her face upturned, eyes closed, and hot water streaming from a surprisingly strong showerhead, the train rocking gently beneath her, the water rolling rapidly over her. Around her, life on the train, families …
In the Land of Kan’an
Hayya 'ala s-salah. Hayya 'ala 'l-falah. Farid answers the call. Stands between two men that connect him to a row of two dozen others, to fourteen centuries of millions more. All facing al-Baytu l-ʿAtīq: The Primordial House, home of the Black Stone. A stone whiter than milk when it fell from Paradise only to be …
Charcoal
At first I didn’t understand what I would be guarding. When they said “cave paintings,” I pictured canvases hidden underground, like art stolen by the Nazis, but they turned out to be drawings of animals, in charcoal, right on the walls of a cave. Nobody in the village knew about the cave before then, except …
Cartography
It seemed the problem of my adolescence was the yellow line. The Nubian God slapped the switch on the wall and peeled the quasi-converted space in half by light. Toward the end of the driveway, my skateboard lay on its side like a capsized tanker. Beyond that, the solid yellow line. Like the stripe down …
Marco Polo
George can hold his breath underwater for a very long time. Take for instance now, as he reaches his one hundred and fiftieth Mississippi here in Nicole Petr’s dad’s mansion’s pool. He’s been submerged long enough that he can almost pretend there’s no water at all. But he’s got his eyes open, and he can …
Shattering
The man becomes a dolphin in her dreams. Only briefly, he is a shining silver arc above her, and then, when his hips push down between her legs he’s a man again. The air is bright around him. His shoulders are rounded, his eyes closed, his mouth is open, gasping. She had thought he looked …