The Stories
Given how long we humans have been making stories, it doesn’t seem like it should be so hard to say what exactly a story is, but definitions tend to fall flat, or veer so far into the technical that they miss that elemental quality that draws us in, has drawn us in, throughout history. More and more, and especially in the course of curating this issue, I’ve come to think of the story as a gift. There’s the gift of time — the hours and weeks and months that have gone into each of the pieces below; not to mention the years before that, time in which the writer honed their craft, became the person who could tell this story. Which makes the story a gift of the self, as well. One self reaching out to another — the reader — affecting us, making us laugh or realize what we already knew, somewhere deep down. And here is where, it seems to me, the story reveals itself as a gift that might best be called transcendent, because while it’s the meeting place of two minds, it's more than that, too — not just where Writer and Reader come together, but a channeling of the zeitgeist, the story at once profoundly individual and completely communal. It’s where we see the world on the page; ourselves in another, despite differences in birth or upbringing; where we are reminded that we are both many and one.
— Carolyn Wilson-Scott
Fiction Editor
After sifting through hundreds and hundreds of submissions, I’ve found this batch of tales to reflect a particular distaste towards complacency. A sentiment that seems to be held across the globe this year. Be it on a micro or macro level, many of these narratives harbor an itch that yearns to be scratched or a stone waiting to be turned. Short vignettes nestled within intimate family dynamics or expansive epics touched by the paranormal activities of magical realism. It is my pleasure to present to you the very spirit of storytelling that has moved me while curating this issue in hopes that it moves mountains for any and everyone else.
— Devin Lewis-Green
Fiction Editorial Intern
Human nature, and its adaptability to various situations, fascinates me. I marvel at its flexibility, its resilience. I admire how it can withstand influencing forces, both good and bad, and find its place. The stories selected for the Emerging Voices Fiction category have all that human nature element, whether it was about finding compassion, reclaiming identity or living with and accepting the past. Each story celebrates what it is to be human, to be gloriously fallible. It is an honour to read emerging writers’ work and to be a part of their journey.
— Michelle Tanmizi
Editor, Emerging Voices in Fiction
anarkali
Pooja joshi
Sometimes it felt like the truth might come hurtling out of my mouth like vomit, because my belly was already so full of Anarkali’s food there was no room left for a secret. But then I’d find a burp within my bowels, something would deflate, and the secret remained right where it was, festering like a cancer inside my stomach, but never coming out.
ants and lizards running around
kerry furukawa
From the back step, I look out at clusters, towers, and mini plains of green, so dense, like a green wall. My mind wanders before latching on to a thought. I am sure they would have provided a good place for me to jump from my body and run to, back when I was little.
mustard seeds
anagha devarakonda
She clutches the plastic rim of the shopping cart, dry hands so stiff she can see white lines weave baskets over her knuckles. The noxious smell of deli meat permeates the air around her. All she wants is a handful of mustard seeds.
clementina’s sweet pleasure spot (csps)
Ayotola Tehingbola
WELCOME to Clementina’s Sweet Pleasure Spot. Oga B.B.C., balance well, okay? Or else. If you fall, nobody will carry you here. There is no ambulance or 911. Angela, these bottles of Coke are not cold. You wan make these Oyinbo people faint for my hotel? You are welcome, my August visitors.
how cold is too cold?
Eoin Connolly
The morning of her son’s twelfth birthday began with two polite rejections that landed one after the other in Siobhan Carolan’s inbox. By the time she managed to drag herself out of bed, Reilly had gone to pick up the cake. He hadn’t left her any coffee. While she made a fresh pot, she rang him.
a brief and melancholy history
Colton Huelle
In black bubble letters on the crème beige hood of my ‘85 Mercedes, somebody had spray-painted the word FUCKBOY. It could only have been the work of Phoebe Starling, and I went at once to confront her.
She held a Graduate Assistantship in the Wentworth College Archives, which was where I found her, feeding a handwritten manuscript into a document scanner.
montressor
chris hill
Forty miles from Highpoint, past the Spine, up the edge of the Badlands. On a map, the old Goldrush Road looks nice, a little stripe of colour on the page. Not so nice in the real.
Flatland, but high up, meaning the sun can get good work on it. No creeks or rock tanks, no sir, not here.
scarlett afternoon
Autumn Konovalski
Bernadette squinted through the mini blinds as a middle-aged woman approached her shop. A typical client. Blue veins that showed through her translucent skin, even during the summer. She was too distraught to bother with makeup. Her face was red from crying, almost perfectly matching her frizzy hair.
8.41pm
ben macnair
We start at work, just as you leave yours.
By the time you are safely home, we are just getting ready. You are in the shower, scrubbing off the cares of the day, food warming in the oven. We are just getting ready. Putting on our kit. Flexing our muscles, looking out for trouble, so we can stop it, or wade in if we get the chance.
when i look back, i see anna underwater
adam graham
“What’s that on your lip?” your brother would say, and you’d pull it back like a turtlehead. I always searched for you in the bleachers – when you cupped your hands to yell, when you said my name. It was nothing. You were a girl and I, a boy. We were kids, that’s all. But those moments, those memories. They sat and stuck like morning dew.
shadow boxing with apollo creed
andrew furman
First thing that caught his eye was the burly black man in a convertible Mercedes-Benz 450SL, his muscled arm leaning against the doorframe, conspicuous for taking up a spot at the far end of the lot away from all the other cars, conspicuous for being a black man driving a Mercedes in the Valley. Apollo Creed!
moon & shadow
Sacha Bissonnette
As I stand at the edge, I can see what she would’ve seen. She too must have been drenched like this, soaked in a river of sweat. I can feel the pounding in her ears, the quick shallow breaths that make her chest rise and fall rapidly, unevenly. I feel the cold concrete of the barrier.
an invocation
Swayamsrestha Kar
Nothing begins from nothing. There has to be a first; a first line, first gesture, first step. So at the dance’s beginning, we call on the gods who were the first to stir awake in the universe’s dream. We call on them to bless our movements so they may be true to the shapes of the world.
the new sunrise
brandon yu
Welcome to the 1937 Nanking Tournament, pitting the Chinese Nationalists against the Imperial Japanese. This morning’s debate will be hosted by Human Folly, and refreshments will be served by existing public infrastructure that hasn’t been bombed into oblivion by Japanese air raids. As all Western powers have declined to intervene, no interruptions are allowed.
a language made of light
Daniel Goulden
I didn’t care much when an angel landed on the hill outside of our village. It was the early days of the world back then, when things were new and fragile like morning dew, and miracles were so common they were practically mundane. But when Tabitha burst through our door and announced that an angel had arrived, taking deep breaths of air between each word, my husband perked up.
super salad
young gunn kim
Jung-do gets up and bows his head before leaving. As he closes Mr. Lim’s office door behind him, he winces at a thought. How absurd it was to bow, especially to a Caucasian like Mr. Wright who wouldn’t care about such deference. But old habits die hard. Jung-do has turned fifty this year, and he still unconsciously bows to those older than him.
sorry to see you go
kevin calder
Shortly after marrying Atlas Burden in the backyard of a stranger’s house in Beverly Hills, I became haunted by the ghost of Lucille Ball. It took me a minute to realize what was happening. I’ve never been famous for being the brightest bulb in the chandelier (falling more into the “emotionally intelligent” category), but the day finally came when I could ignore it no longer.
dubois
Aren LeBrun
I was living downtown with my wife at the time, a poet and former runner-up for Miss St. Louis, at a motel not far from the hydroelectric facility, swallowing pharmaceutical amphetamines and prattling on rather dishonestly about life, one day into the next. We fought, lost weight, held each other, issued crazy, unpardonable accusations, made love with the TV screaming, invented new futures all the time and planned them out with a detail and aplomb that would injure your heart.
so much noise
J.A. McGrady
Julia was trying to get dinner ready but she couldn’t peel the potatoes because the baby was crying. Her husband, Ned, was upstairs in the shower so she had to stand in the kitchen with the baby in her arms, swaying from one hip to the other, humming the refrain of an already forgotten hymn.
falling ashes
Shelonda Montgomery
Badass Larry sit on the windowsill smoking a cigarette like he grown. Some boys way older than him stand beside him smoking too. The plastic, dirty window behind Larry has old cigarette burns that’s been on it for years. Larry in my brother Quentin’s class.
The Summer Rocco Lost His Virginity
Liam Scanlon
The summer that Rocco lost his virginity, the music pushed him into it and cheered him on. It was the soundtrack of flushed faces and jackrabbit heartbeats. Sizzling sun and lonely purple nights. The smooth indie sounds of a boy trying, desperately, to get free.
$1000 Buddha
stewart engesser
They wheeled into the crushed-shell parking lot of Snug Harbor Nursery and Garden Center, their imported SUV the color of seafoam. The afternoon like honey, the sea breeze carrying the wash of waves, the tang of salt and roses.
We had waited all summer, and now, here they were.
The Ones.
Carl, Britt and I watched them emerge. Golden, pre-ordained, their fate written in the stars. Their energy predatory.
nomad’s lad
Steven Mayoff
The door is ajar. Usually there are all kinds of sound effects coming out of Colin’s room, car crashes, bombs exploding, machine guns, but all you hear is the muted sound of keyboard taps. You take a breath. Both hands steady, holding the tray. Steam rising from the bowl, a slice of carrot bobbing on the broth’s golden sheen. You nudge the door with your hip.
The separatist
Ernest Langston
Marigolds rotted in the lobby of the three-hundred-year-old Spanish hacienda. The house appeared sturdy with its oversized wooden doors and wrought iron fixtures, yet suffered from years of neglect. As I stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking upward toward the second floor, a feeling of abandonment swept through the room.
say anything
Madari Pendas
You chase your cousins, Miraflor and Tony, around the royal poinciana until you're dizzy and stumbling over your own light-up sneakers. The ground’s covered in mushy, wrinkled red leaves. Some stick to your ankles and look like fresh cuts. The cousins taunt you, sticking their tongues out.
the Gorgoneion
Jennafer D'Alvia
In the middle-school hallway on the second floor, Bobby Gattone’s hanging around. The two of us alone with no one else there. I know it by the time I slam my locker door, squeeze the lock closed. Bobby's waiting for me. He's making a show of it, loitering with his large body curved.
north of nashville
Corinne Cordasco-Pak
I’m in the ladies’ room at Our Lady of Perpetual Endurance, waiting for the funeral to start, when I hear my grandmother walk in. I’m still locked in the stall, but I know it’s her from the familiar swish of her worn rubber-soled slippers. By the time I scrunch back into my pantyhose, she’s sitting on a sink, lighting a cigarette.
call it a win
kris norbraten
When it all crashed down, after her anger subsided, my wife and I talked about who we were before our offspring shot screaming into the world; we imagined who we might have become once they morphed into young adults and launched out the front door. Then we agreed, each in our own reluctant way, to cut each other loose and allow ourselves a win.
