Fiction

Here comes that buck again. Long flank, long shanks, big crown of antlers. Hooves cracking the ice-glazed early season snow in the yard, and on the other side of the grass there is a huddling confluence of doe, softly rendered into watercolor smudges of brown by frost on the window. Marcus from next door, also long bodied, long legged, hands that are twice the size of yours, asks hey, whatcha looking at?  You ask if he knows what a deer run is, how the stretch of land between

The second floor is empty. The belly of the house thrums with guests, but on the second floor, the air is solid, untouched. Every door is locked. You walk towards the bathroom to the rhythm of a DJ no one remembers hiring. Kneel at the door. The sink is running. On the other side, you can hear the prayer of her breath. She says, “I ordered some flowers today. I hate online shopping, but that Mrs. Johnson’s place was closed.” “I never got any flowers.” “I didn’t say they were

If I wanted to find Yaya Clemen, I only had to follow the red. She marked the day the way fishermen track the tides, little commas of spit that browned at the edges on the concrete, on the wet market tiles, beside the bougainvillea, on the jeepney step where she would lift me by the armpits and plant me between sacks of rice and the lady with a basket of malunggay. Not blood, not really, though when I was small I swore it was, and the more they told me it was nganga, betel an

Outside it was buggy. In a plastic bag I carried window cleaner, oranges, and waxy cold cuts. I’d already split one of the navels and thumbed out a slice, the pith thickening under my nails. I was walking home from the grocer’s, peeling an orange and trying to step on each crack. I glanced back at a crack where a tree root split the pavement and saw him then. Thin, dark-haired, rosacea up his arms and neck. He’d helped me reach a honeydew at the store. Now he was a house down

Winner of the 2025 Broad Ripple Review Prize in Fiction Giulia has only to rehang this evening gown, a column of mint chiffon, before she can close the register for the night. But the woman in sunglasses is still here, flicking through beaded sheaths and A-lines Giulia should have waited to straighten. Perhaps Giulia should ask the customer what she asks every other woman who steps into her designer corner of La Rinascente. Mi scusi, do you need assistance?  A question that r

There was a week in late September when the house forgot it was mine. The light turned sidelong and suspicious, slipping through the blinds like it wasn’t sure it belonged. The hallway stayed cool no matter how high I turned the heating. Even the walls seemed to keep their distance, like they were waiting for someone else to enter the room first. I didn’t leave. Not because I was brave. Just because no one asked me to. On the third day, I lit a fire. She’d always hated the sm