Manal Deeb / Courtesy of the artist
A trip to the doctor leaves an unnecessary burden on a young girl.
I inherited the dark skin of the slim body I inhabit from my mother. Together with worr…
Fiction
Dana Barqawi, Woman Digging Thorns out of Field / Courtesy of the Artist In the following voyage of self-discovery and reflection on humanity—excerpted from a forthcoming book—the author…
Hiba Yassine / Courtesy of the artist In the following parable, a young boy discovers that he is a king. 1 I never thought I’d become a king at the age of thirteen. It was a…
Reem Khader, and she prevails / Courtesy of the artist (Everything here is reported by the young man who found the bottle.) This small light-emitting machine is currently still deco…
Manal Deeb / Courtesy of the artist A salt swing, and its story, connects a young woman to her grandmother—and more. The salt that lay on Grandmother’s lips, and the grief of the story in th…
Asma Ghanem / Courtesy of the artist A girl, “seduced by the city of Haifa,” loses her braid in a barbershop. My mom and I crossed the road from the bus station to the only barbershop in the…
Nadine Toukan, Al Aqsa / Courtesy of the artist When a mysterious teacher and his eighth-grade students disappear, the subject of transformation appears along the investigative trail.…
Sliman Mansour, Rituals Under Occupation / Courtesy of the Artist Respect the gods, Achilles, and show mercy towards me. –King Priam, Book XXIV, The Iliad When they wheel…
“Anatomy of the mouth” by liverpoolhls is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 In the dentist’s chair with mouth wide open, a patient contemplates her tongue’s relationships to B6 or B7, how shade 2 benef…
Photo by Joseph Rushmore In the following story, the narrator imagines what role her family might have played in a race massacre—and the generations of silence that followed. May 20,…
Photo by Serj Tyaglovsky / Unsplash With two weeks of food and the outside world covered in cellophane, apartment dwellers under a stay-at-home order get to know their neighbors as things grow in…
Photo by Olga Serjantu / Unsplash Whatever happened in the neighborhood, ‘Ubayd was said to be behind it. Disappearing water pumps and gas cylinders, broken streetlights, and fires in the farmers’ ma…
Photo by Myrtle Schilling / Unsplash I’ve seen it more than once: the raised axe swings and chops into the last remnant; Lying still in the dirt is the moving, glowing crown. – Rahel,…
Meytar Moran, The Stage, from the Black Magic series (2014–2015), meytarmoran.com In a field near the Gaza Strip, a missile strike, visions, and onlookers searching for an explanation.…
Painted Cats by sjrankin is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 Hoping battles knowing in this three-act seduction (spoiler alert: there’s a cat in the story). 1. Try to seduce someone. How…
“We Don't Care Broken Window Theory” by Zak MC is licensed under CC by SA 2.0 Old Acquaintance Having met by chance, they hugged. “Long time no see!” the men chorused. They caught up, exchanged telep…
“I love you" by @Doug88888 / flickr People believe, Marie thinks, even when there’s no proof. You believe because you imagine. But is imagination enough to live by? Die. This is wha…
Photo by the camera is a toy / Flickr An artist of stillness, her life a dance of immobility, performs the art of losing in a plaza. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, and the show is about…
Calle del Cristo, San Juan Antiguo, Puerto Rico. Photo by Nikita Castro / Unsplash After a hurricane, two young boys find some things, but not everything, changed. At house T24 of Bellísima…
Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash After multiple catastrophes and faced with the pandemic lockdown—the pain of fear, of austerity, and of abandon—a woman needing to feel loved and eroticized find…
Castillo San Felipe del Morro / Photo by Terry Ott / Flickr A woman, her caregiver, and a daily walk to the edge of a cliff overlooking an estuary. 1 I’ve told Camándula man…
Illustration by Tom Hart / Flickr After Hurricane Maria, in a hospital with no electrical power, a man seeks medical treatment for his father as the US president visits the city. “Papi ain’t…
Image: Tim Mossholder / Unsplash A daughter faces a dilemma when the coronavirus creates an opportunity. When I found out that the virus from China made its way to Puerto Rico, all my fears…
Photo: dotpolka / Flickr A sofa, the site of a family’s history, receives and gives a second life. My parents conceived me on a sofa in a department store. My mother worked in the underwear…
Photo: César Couto / Unsplash Stuck in traffic during a downpour, a driver faces a peculiar dilemma. Juan Carlos saw the man die in the car to the right, in the middle of a bumper-to-bumper…
December 12, 2023
October 24, 2023
