We sit together in the companionable silence of midnight, and savior this slice of life before lockdown. For three months already, the novel Coronavirus has had us trapped in our four walls, with only each other for company, and we’re starting to go insane. I inhale the open night. The mountain grasses whisper warm perfume…
Read MoreVII. How do you deny patience? How do you dismiss respect? How do you reject unconditional love? I will tell you how. You like yourself so little that you find anyone who will give you those things a fool. Only a delusional, misguided pushover would voluntarily nurture you. That is how it was being with…
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Photo by Jacob Boll I first became familiar with Chris L. Terry when his novel, Zero Fade, and mine, Don’t Start Me Talkin’, were being published in 2013 and 2014 by a hip, indie press, Curbside Splendor. So rare has it been to encounter not only another mixed writer, but one with similar parentage and…
Read MoreVI. PB was a place rife with inconveniences: a narrow, creaky bed provided by the theater where one couldn’t even sit up without careening into the top bunk; sunburnt noses and shoulders; and sand that finagled its way onto and into every surface imaginable – toes, teeth, eyelashes and even my luggage, which I discovered…
Read MoreLike most, I’ve always enjoyed receiving flowers. My first boyfriend used to pluck hibiscus and plumeria from the neighborhood hedges and place them behind my ear, causing seventeen year old me to swoon. When we broke up, I continued to buy myself flowers as a sweet gesture— tangible proof that I could make myself feel loved in this…
Read MoreOn a day in late 2020 I visited my parents. I figured I would try to show my baba, who is in his mid 70’s, how to login to the Facebook account I created for him. How to use the Facebook messenger app to call his sisters in Egypt. How to not need an Africa…
Read MoreEver since I figured out there was a difference in color, I wanted to be the lightest, to be a pastel in a sea of primaries. I wanted to be the color of the clouds. I wanted to strip the brown from every inch of my body. Peel it off in sheets, scrub it away…
Read MoreIt doesn’t take too much awareness to realize that the world around us is shifting. Whether or not you are actively participating in that change, or if you prefer to look away, we are all here, and thus, we all have our own unique roles to play. Perhaps you are more conscious of your connection…
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Illustration by Divyakshi Kedia Interesting Times is a diary-style creative nonfiction series that brings together the writer’s experiences of this bizarre new world. Featuring a forest fire evacuation, police hypocrisy, surprisingly friendly preppers and so, so many baby rabbits, it fuses naked vulnerability, impotent rage, and the strange, offbeat humor to be found in our newest…
Read MoreThere came a time, at dinner with my mother, where I realized that she, too, would die. She would grow old and fragile, shrink and eventually wither away, just like her mother, and her mother’s mother. Just like all the mothers that came before her. It came in the form of a superimposition, a memory…
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