Fiction
Lillian tried to forget through silence, and though she could hide the facts from herself, she didn’t know how to keep the fears away.
by Daniel Seifert.
“Luis unscrews a small bottle of puro and daubs Tio’s smiling mouth. In the still air, the pure alcohol makes Luis’s eyes water.
Further down, he hears the deep-throated cough of a detonation. He heads toward it.”
by Mehr-Afarin Kohan.
“Now her praying to the clouds sounded stupid because I was old enough to know that nothing and no one would ever be descending. And old enough to know, something had broken in my mother’s backbone forever.”
Something happens to people that rescue other people, a covenant of sorts… The promise is the same: when I see you, I will keep you safe. I looked at Mariko, the quasar of freckles between her eyes, and that promise was made.
He had been looking at his mother. There was a look on her face he will never forget, like she’d seen through to the other side.
The handle of Hamid’s saber curved above his cummerbund. Arun did not like the way Hamid’s betel-stained teeth smiled out from between his oiled, drooping mustache.
These future doctors need to make a personal connection, to take the time to discuss next steps, to listen . . . Expressing the symptoms of pain is one thing—judging people on their performances is another.
For days he came home to find her in the same spot, staring at an empty street. When she turned to him, her eyes looked like thin wet glass, as if the slightest sound could shatter them.
The room was dark, the father says. Then darker. It happened so quickly, I couldn’t call out. I thought I smelled grain—wheat or oats—what horses eat. A clean, sweet smell.