The moment Tuyet walked into the Dagenais’s compartment, she knew something was different. The usual pack of dogs swarmed around her, distracting her, before she figured out that the compartment smelled different.
Read MoreTomorrow and Tomorrow
“Quarantine is important—we’ve known that since the Middle Ages—but it’s a scalpel, not a hammer. No one should suffer alone.”
Read MoreThe Tolling of Pavlov’s BellsShe sips her coffee like a lady, and then downs her whisky like a champ. Her name is not Alice, but that is what I call her, because her Korean name is hard on my tongue and she doesn’t like to hear me mispronounce it.
Read MoreThe Itaewon Eschatology ShowFat, red, the grocer’s sticker still adhered to its egg-smooth skin; it rested on top of some other fruits in a tattered basket whose stained wicker unwound itself and broke with a snapping sound when touched. There was always a bright, delicious apple in among the Bartlett pears, the purple plums, the fur-covered peaches.
Read MoreAt the CoreAquilo Vickery Makepeace, anatomy student, was looking for corpses when he found the undine.
Read MorePale, and from a Sea-Wave RisingWeeds rise from the roof. We live beneath an accidental garden. It got worse with the summer rains. The shingles grew moldy, and yellow stalks rooted and sucked at the tar, turning black as they drank it like little oil wells.
Read MoreRadishesThere was once a Padishah who one day found a little insect.
Read MoreKamer-taj, the Moon-horseIf I die on this piece-of-shit road, Lubna’s chances die with me. Ali leveled his shotgun at the growling tiger. In the name of God, who needs no credit rating, let me live! Even when he’d been a soldier, Ali hadn’t been very religious. But facing death brought the old invocations to mind.
Read MoreThe Faithful Soldier, PromptedThe woman smelled good–very, very good. Ibrahim trailed her scent through the Suq al’Ala, following her fragrance amid the stench of vendors who had been standing in the hot sun since dawn, the stink of rotting vegetables, the pungent odors of coriander and cinnamon hanging above tables of stacked apples and lemons, the fumes of oil and gas from passing cars, the musk of donkeys and camels and fowl destined to be dinner.
Read More50 Fatwas for the Virtuous Vampire