Issue 19

Arrayga’s Inspection

By MUSTAFA MUBARAK

Translated by ROBIN MOGER

 

From early morning, Arrayga had been smoking ravenously, cigarette after cigarette, staring blankly at the bedroom ceiling. When she opened the third packet, Kultouma came over and, eyes welling with tears, anxiously inquired: “Arrayga, calm down. What is it, sister? You’re going like a train: puff puff puff. Speak to me, Arrayga. What’s upset you?”

Arrayga’s Inspection
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Love, Under a Falling Sky

By MEGAN PINTO 

Say Chicken Little was right, that the sky 
is falling. What I want to know is,
will the moon fall too? Will it bounce softly 
like swiss cheese, or will it crumble
like a stale cookie? Do skies bruise? 
Do they ache? And is the sky
a metaphor for all the ills and evils 
of the world? A testament
to how the earth can only hold so much 
pain and grief? But why
would God send a chicken? Would you listen 
to a chicken? Is the chicken a metaphor 
for Jesus? Did the Bible mention this 
and somehow I missed it? Is this because
in 6th grade my teacher made me promise Jesus 
my virginity in a gift basket? Actually, if the sky falls,

Love, Under a Falling Sky
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Speed of Flight

By CATHERINE BUNI 

The four of them lay on the rug in a circle. They could not be still. They could not shut the hell up. They played blackjack, betting for fistfuls of jerky their dad kept stashed on a kitchen shelf. Only rarely did the girl beat the boys, though she was next to oldest. There were three of them to her one, an equation of quantity and logic, she’d always understood, but also of weight and matter. Ace and face, she threw down her cards, three lucky wins in a row. She whooped and lifted up from the floor, prepared to wrestle an accord, star-flung limbs and static-flared hair bound in constellation. Instead, this late afternoon, the oldest brother detonated the cards in a rush of edges. Red and black diamonds, spades, hearts, and clubs.

Speed of Flight
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Nothing More Human

By SURAJ ALVA

 

You are in a chamber, waiting for the bailiff.  

When he comes in, you wish you had been killed. Not your brother. 

The rusted scent of the metal chair you’re on reminds you of the smell of his blood on your hands, chest, and hair: sweetly pungent with a strong hint of iron. 

You start hearing his choked gurgles, see the blood spouting from his mouth. Smelling again the gunpowder-laced air between your body and his. The gurgling stops, his eyes close, and alarm strikes your throat numb, temporarily freezing your screams. His body begins to tremble, violently.

Nothing More Human
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Crater Lake

By marcus scott williams

 

there’s like 30 miles of Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway then another lil highway
til the lake. the pines fall off occasionally & the pre-dusklight accentuates the
gold in the dust & dirt. dead trees chalk line ones still standing. it’s so quiet iont
have words to describe it properly. Myrrh calls me out for projecting onto this lil
kid i said looked gay & i am proud of them for holding me accountable; they’re
right. we talk on the hike down about the violence that manifests w projecting,

Crater Lake
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Sara Who Married a Dead Man

By AHMAD AL MALIK

Translated from the Arabic by ROBIN MOGER

 

The zaar concluded on the tenth day. With a small retinue, Sara went down to the Nile.

On this, the last day, she had to wash every inch of her body in the river’s sacred waters, and then the celebrations could begin. She stepped quickly, her body weightless now all the years of waiting and false promises were set aside. Face shining, renewed, it was as though three decades of dread had swirled up and away with the incense smoke and the dust raised by the devil’s music. Purged of its frustrations, her mind could usher in thoughts of hope, and it seemed to her now, as she stepped out of the house and back into the world outside, that divine care had granted her its protection; was shielding her from time, against oblivion.

Sara Who Married a Dead Man
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On the Train

By ISHRAGA MUSTAFA HAMID

Translated by JONATHAN WRIGHT

 

The ride on the train from Kosti, known as “the steamer,” marked the start of the summer vacation. As soon as it began, I felt a mixture of sadness and joy—joy that I would be traveling on the westbound train again, and sadness at leaving my hometown, which rang with daytime noises and the singing of the fishermen on the river. I sobbed when I thought I would never return to the town’s embrace. Had my young heart already surmised that my departure would take me to a faraway country, much farther than my child’s mind could grasp? With my grandmother as my traveling companion, I started to discover the story of my family, the countryside, and the towns where her sisters and the rest of the family lived.

On the Train
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The Creator

By ABDEL-GHANI KARAMALLA

Translated by ELISABETH JAQUETTE 

 

“Goal! Nice goal!”

That’s what my mother calls from where she sits on her low stool, which seems to long for the earth of my father’s grave, when she sees me kick an onion between two of the legs supporting the large earthen water jar. My vegeta-ball bounces off one leg and lands in the smoke pit, crying hot tears from the wound she sustained when she struck the sharp leg.

The smoke pit is under my grandmother’s wooden bed, so I bend down to retrieve my vegeta-ball, but when I see that the ground under her bed is wet with water dripping from the jug, I immediately forget what I was looking for. I love mud, and so donkeys, sheep, lions, elephants, and chickens emerge from the mud thanks to my fingertips, and then I take my new flock to graze in the courtyard, where they all eat grass, and even the lion’s stomach is fine with it. The two pebbles I use for his sad and happy eyes are like lovely girls’ eyes in my country. The elephant is smaller than the goat; it wasn’t born, doesn’t reproduce, and won’t die, just like the goat, and like me, I think, and the matches make for straight tusks. My mother is looking at me with a lot of love, not because I’m little and without a father, but because I’m ugly and skinny and poor, and my mother thinks this trinity will crucify me on sturdy beams before the age of thirty. But she doesn’t notice that the lion I’ve made is like an officer in plainclothes, that its mouth looks as meek as the beak of a bird, as if Christ has come down into my fingertips, then out through my hands. “Don’t worry about him,ˮ my grandmother tells my mother. “He’s been watching water drip from the jug for four hours, perfectly happy.”

The Creator
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