She comes out of the gate wearing jeans and a backpack. Jeans! When did she start wearing those? “Hi,” she says. “Radhika?” I ask. She gives me a hug and slips a bag of airplane peanuts into my pocket. “Who else? Some other cousin you were expecting?” “How’s India?” …
Wake up. No cars on the roads. No paper to wipe my ass. I drink coffee. Drink some more. Pour it down my throat until it scalds my insides and is coming out the other end in a continuous stream. I wonder why I can’t just recirculate this fluid,…
Anita, at five. Crawling up stairs. Gets to the top and tumbles down. “She should be walking by now,” says her mother. Outside, Anita holds a tree and lifts herself up. Across the street, music blares and a man hits a woman in the face. A car twirls out of the driveway.…
Anna must be six years old. It’s hard to tell from Chamali’s window. The girl scoots about the lawn, next to the rotted bones of a barbeque. She is swinging a broomstick without an end. Now and then, she goes to the curb and jumps on the road, as though daring a car to…
Janey said to God, “I’m bored. Need a toy.” “Would you like a new star?” asked God. Janey shook her head. “A new galaxy?” Janey shook her head. “A whole new universe?” “I want something with life on it,” said Janey. She put her hands on…
It’s September 1917, and Lucia has just kissed her cousin. It was a wet, complicated event, and she’s not now sure how she should go about removing the taste of it from her lips. Sheep crowd around her feet. She sticks her tongue out. On the tree before her, a woman appears.…
For as long as Jan can remember, she wanted to live in an orange house. Not a dark orange or a rust color, but a vibrant, bright orange glowing like the late evening sun – only it’s not easy to have that color on your house when you grow up in Michigan, or even…
