Illustration by Tom Hart / Flickr
After Hurricane Maria, in a hospital with no electrical power, a man seeks medical treatment for his father as the US president visits the city.
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Fiction
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Image: Tim Mossholder / Unsplash A daughter faces a dilemma when the coronavirus creates an opportunity. When I found out that the virus from China made its way to Puerto Rico… -
Photo: dotpolka / Flickr A sofa, the site of a family’s history, receives and gives a second life. My parents conceived me on a sofa in a department store. My mother worked in the u… -
Photo: César Couto / Unsplash Stuck in traffic during a downpour, a driver faces a peculiar dilemma. Juan Carlos saw the man die in the car to the right, in the middle of a bu… -
Rosaura Rodríguez, La ciudad es salvaje (The city is savage) Catastrophes of biblical proportions lead one San Juan woman to the promised land: Orlando. [57]… -
In the Karl Liebknecht House in Leipzig, Germany, thirty people of various nationalities are seated around an improvised table on the stage in the Events Hall, interpreters behind them, some wit… -
Photo: Elia Pellegrini / Unsplash Over time you realize that the only thing you can do is to comfort. Before my grandmother passed, having already dwindled away, she would hold my hand tightl… -
Photo: Oxa Roxa / Unsplash Looking for her dead wife, a woman finds an unusual bonsai with mythical connections and a few complaints. Laurel, without shoes, wandered aimlessly from… -
Portrait number four from Second Skins Collection, photography by Miguel Vallinas Prieto In this Kafkaesque story, two startling discoveries follow the transformation of a man’s… -
Photo: Mark Gunn / Flickr Papa received a scythe from a co-worker as a present. Mama is horrified. “A scythe in our house?” Papa wants to reassure her: “I’ve set it in the cellar.” “Fo… -
Photo: Oxa Roxa / Unsplash The students noticed an opening at the bottom of the fence, a tear in the wires. On the other side of the fence was the outside, which they only saw from the bu… -
Photo: cyclonebill / Flickr In this political satire, an innocent meal becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. The maître d’, who was called over by the waiter, asked: “Is there a proble… -
Photo: Rachel Lees / Unsplash A couple in their kitchen. Either the man or the woman speaks first. We should make sure they’ve inspected the car. I guess they probabl… -
Photo: Zhenyu Luo / Unsplash Down the first twist of stairs and Josie hears she is not alone, like hearing a tree in the wind beyond her bedroom window. The old man: splay-legged before his d… -
Photo: Mark Eder / Unsplash Margherita was tiny and hunched. She had light eyes, and always—summer or winter—wore a shawl she kept closed on her chest with her hand, as if clutching a necklac… -
Painting by Sara Jimenez In this story by an indigenous writer from the southern Philippines, a crime continues to haunt a local’s thoughts. It had been some time since Lolo Bebe pa… -
Photo: Sarah C / Flickr She makes the little balls with extreme care, as if for a sphericity contest, and then she puts each one next to the other. This order, which she must disturb to f… -
Photo: Omid Armin / Unsplash A stalled train and shifting visage make for an eerie commute. I could’ve stayed in bed a little longer, but what for? Surely that would only make… -
Photo: Cory Doctorow / Flickr What a world. In life we have to make choices, face the most loathsome decisions; and, there up ahead, all you see are forks in the road. Hang a left, or maybe a… -
Photo: Victor Grabarczyk / Unsplash An encounter between a tonga driver and the “cruelty folks” seizes a university student’s attention on his way to class. Sometimes I remember str… -
Photo: Ray Hennessy / Unsplash In May 1974, in New York’s René Block Gallery at 409 West Broadway, Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) carried out his performance “I Like America and America L… -
Photo: Zoltan Tasi / Unsplash A mother’s conflict with her daughter causes her to reflect on Khawnaa, a mathematician-astrologer and light of the Bengali medieval court. When my da… -
Birds Watching, by Jenny Kendler, part of Indicators: Artists on Climate Change at Storm King Art Center, depicts one hundred eyes of bird species threatened or endangered by cl… -
Photo: Philipp Bock/Flickr Banned from entering soccer stadiums since Iran’s 1979 revolution, the young women in this story hatch a risky plan to get inside the stadium on game day. … -
Photo: Jordan Whitt/Unsplash In this coming-of-age tale with a dark twist, two brothers engage in a deathly game. MY BROTHER LEMMY taught me how to die. I was then…