‘He’s not himself’, Mum says in the kitchen. Well, who is he then? Is he 40 per cent of his young self? Ten? Do I still have to love him as much as ever, this 90 per cent stranger?
All winter, I’ve been sleeping in the room I slept in as a child and I wake up each day not knowing how old I am. Five? Or twenty-five? He could live to be a hundred – I could be middle-aged, still staring up at this same ceiling.
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Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
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Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
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‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
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‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
‘It was the first teasing days of spring, the scent in the air a cross between death and cum.’
Fiction by Stacy Skolnik.
‘One did not have high hopes for Gettysburg. Nor for Pennsylvania in general. Having grown up in Indiana, Diana felt she’d earned her condescension.’
Fiction by Jessi Jezewska Stevens.
‘It’s a paper bag filled with pastries. Chicken turnovers.’
An extract from Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
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Wiam El-Tamami on returning to Cairo.
‘The world in which he grew up, a pastoral nomadic life that developed over centuries in isolation, is disappearing’.
