Fiction

In Lahore, a season of smog set in with the new year. Mornings became a milky haze, swirled through with a fistful of turmeric. In this haze, my cousins Shams and Qamar crouched on the lawn, transplanting marigolds into beds of dried dung and river loam while my uncle shouted instructions from his wheelchair. I…

“These black eyes, a gift of the night / I use their darkness to seek the light.” —Gu Cheng, “One Generation”   Beijing The first time we met, I noticed that your eyes weren’t even close to black. They caught fire in the dim light of the poetry workshop: eight women, including you and me,…

I stood in a hallway outside a hotel room. It was my hotel room. Ahead of me, at the end of the hallway, I could see into a bathroom that had a glass wall. There was a cubicle in there made of arsenic-green metal, like in a locker room or high school hallway. It housed,…

As soon as Tiffany steps off the yellow school bus onto the strip of grass across from her house, her stomach gurgles and roils and she thinks she might throw up. She’s twelve years old and just home from the first day of sixth grade. She’s a pretty girl, though she doesn’t know it. She’s…

Indra says no, don’t, and Jeff says nothing. They’re in his car on a quiet mountain road. It’s summer and hot and the windows are open. In the surrounding woods cicadas are roaring. Jeff’s hand is on Indra’s knee. He’s in the driver’s seat, twisted around, leaning close to her. It’s the moment before a…

I wasn’t surprised when I heard the stories about him on the news. Because of what had happened. Because of his—antics, his demeanor, maybe you’d say. I knew him back then and it’s been a long time now. But still.   He was an athlete, yes, but he had long, thin fingers, like a piano…

The doors open into a spectacle of love. A Celebration of Love, according to the red letters scrolling across the marquee. White orchids, pink peonies, and red roses strewn across shimmering chandeliers. On stage, beneath strobe lights, a six-man ballet troupe with tense quadriceps and purple velvet sashes—but now with streaking faces, like melting dolls….

Today I took the morning off and went to the art gallery in our neighborhood. It still amazes me that I live in a neighborhood that has an art gallery. It amazes me that I own a home, that I have children. What happened between ages thirty and forty to get me here? How did…

It was a biblical June. All Connecticut Junes are wet, but this year the rain refused to quit. The year-rounders shook their heads, apologizing to the summer folks for the weather, as though they were somehow responsible for the ruined picnics and flooded back roads. They had never in all their years seen the likes….