Fiction
The Beast Room
The woman unlocked the door and pushed the child ahead of her into the attic room. She held the candle just above the child’s head. "You will sleep here,'' she said. At first in the dim light the child could see only the bed. It was a large bed, like a heap of gray wool …
Cimex Lectularius
Whenever I see an exterminator company's vehicle on the street I think what a boon such a service would have been to the set tlers of the Rosebud Country of South Dakota. Mass exterminations were unknown in those days. They were an individual or a family matter, carried out painstakingly by hand. There were no …
Homecoming
He watched the car turn and dip away through a wide stretch of houses that crowded a smudge of far smoke streaming above a slow-fading curve of tall factory chimneys. To the left the downtown heights towered, remote and faint, over the smoke-pennoned river. The city trembled before him like a creation out of his …
The Right Hand
The boy stood tense, holding the post steady and straight in the post hole his father had dug to fill the broken line in the fence. He was a young boy, twelve or so, with light blond hair, like his father's where it had not turned gray, and with eyes the color of smoke, holding …
The Envied Ones
Some years ago, during a discussion of the fine arts among the colored people, a critic said, "I do not pity the Negro writer. I envy him. "I envy him for his background, for the vast and dramatic knowledge into which he is born. I envy him for his heritage of suffering and of close …
The Temples of Learning
Ling Ki came to America for an education. His cousin, on the Hu Road, had an honored friend whose brother dwelt in Canton as a tea merchant, and he knew a man who had gone to America for an education. This man lived near the river, and he dealt in rice. He was not a …
Lemonade
Your grandmother is on her deathbed now. She made it a long time ago. Which is to say it was made for her. Which really means she doesn’t want it but she’s going to lie down anyway. You prop her pillows for her, lace her lemonade with Demerol because she is dying and dying hurts …
Night Island
That was what they should have called it, thought Isabella, as she trudged behind Billy along the beach, phosphorescent plankton throwing off light in response to each footstep. Night for the color of the sand. Night for the hours they were awake there. Halfway to the mangroves, their flashlights, covered in red contact paper, caught …
Karachi Raj
“Aiy, Seema, open the door! What, thieves will come and rob you, so you have to hide?” Hafiz’s nineteen-year-old sister, the unacknowledged pride of the Basti, was hiding out. Late afternoon, when her parents and brother were at work, was a precious time to study. She loved solitude. But neighbors had other ideas. Mithi bai …