Although he couldn’t save his wife, Matthew said he was lucky to escape the woods. Later, it came out that, onthe first day of the hike, as he’d planned all along, he hit her on the head with a stone and pushed her off a cliff. Her body struck the rock wall twice, then crashed through the canopy of trees below. Some of her short mousey hairs stuckto the stone, which he chucked after her. He timed twenty minutes on his watch then called for help. No one came. Even…
Month: September 2025
That’s God, Emily
Emily remembered long ago when her parents found her in the backyard as a child, knees in the mud, digging in the dirt with her bare hands. She looked up at them as they loomed over her, the gentle rain beading on her father’s glasses and painting dark dots on her mother’s red jacket. Emily…
Screams of Lost Souls
Our high school rose above Istanbul like a mausoleum, and its corridors steeped in mildew and silence. Every stair groaned like a coffin lid, the walls bled with forgotten mosaics clawing their way back to the surface, and it sounded as if the building had learned to exhale slowly, the way the sea does before…
Mr Moustache
It could be a shed for livestock, or farm equipment; anything except kitchen supplies. The dark green paint job looks fresh, trying to blend into landscape; an attempt to appear inconspicuous. Eyes of greasy men watch from across the road, cigarettes dangling from their bearded mouths. Sounds of hammering and tinkering from their garage fills the…
The Hiding Place
The front door slams downstairs. If I hear whistling, it’s dad. If not, it’s her. I count my heartbeats in my throat. The sun has started its slow descent. The many-petaled leaves of the mimosa brush against the window screen like waves against the shore. Footsteps thunk across the floor toward the kitchen. No whistle. …