When Helen lands in her birth country, nobody is there to greet her. The deathly heat from the Caribbean sun can’t penetrate the chill she feels of being alone. She looks around at the people that walk past her, their eyes gliding
Adesanya’s sunken eyes show shadows and fire. The wet earth opens and moves under foot. Behind the log cabin, beyond the stone ridge, stands a grey wind-whipped landscape; it tumbles like a deck of cards. A free-falling disaster charges in gravity’s call,
When Lenaya is twenty-seven she begins to see pieces of her mama everywhere. In the red lip color worn by a stranger at the bar, in the thick country accent of her bus driver. In the solemn way her husband says her
The parents had been seduced by the impalpable sanctuary of a promise. They had been lured by a cool and crisp country flowing with potential. They were to be foreigners living in a foreign land, spacious and fertile for opportunity. They were
I email him and tell him that I want to see him. I send it via email because I deleted his number to keep myself from drunk texting him, as had become my habit. We haven’t talked in weeks; the last message
“Curse this damned place. I don’t want anything to do with here.” Holson, my best childhood friend, slammed the door and headed off on foot to the nearest mechanic. He just wants to be nobody in a big city. He wants time
The last time I tried to kill him, I failed miserably. No blood, no 911 calls, hell – he didn’t even know his life was in danger. I’m lucky the District Attorney didn’t press charges. He didn’t die, and I didn’t go
About time, Rose grumbled under her breath as she snatched up her two half-filled garbage bags from the ground and made her way toward the front of the line. Even with an ankle-length skirt on, there was no escaping the scorching midday
At bedtime, the little girl I babysat grabbed my shirt and whispered, “Don’t go there.” “Go where?” I picked her up and walked through the minimalist-styled kitchen with its dark cabinets and farmhouse sink, to the open living room and up the
The buzzer rang. In exactly three and a half minutes, she would be outside of my door. I waited for my screams to settle through the water. I dried off; noticing a scab once again lived on my skin. An old woman
It’s not right for a daughter to see her father naked. I’m sure my father knows this, and deep down in her heart, my mother knows this too. When she sends me to him, she doesn’t look me in the eye, she
I. Rose stood in her tiny, cluttered living room, trying to remember why she was there. “Go brush your teeth and find your glasses,” she said out loud, before following her own command: first to the bathroom to brush her teeth, then
My eyes shot open. I must’ve dozed off. My head was pounding. Perhaps it was the bright, fluorescent light in this cold, white, sterile box of a room. I was sitting on a black plastic chair against the wall. The entire wall
“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you okay?” I shielded my eyes from the glaring sunlight. Its warmth usually brightened my spirits but for some reason, it didn’t today. “Hi, sir,” I managed to say. There was a man outside my window wearing a white
1966 Sweat trickled down James’s forehead. The screaming from the crowd was earsplitting. The lights were so bright around the ring, and he couldn’t even hear his coach, Lee, yelling at him. His mouth was moving, but no sound could be heard.
Many days we passed Miss Daisy’s house and yelled hi. She would usually call us up on her front porch to visit. She would be sitting in her rocking chair fanning flies from her face and intermittently wiping sweat from her wrinkleless
