As their eyes locked, Naush hoped he had said something different. Something like: “Let’s get our stories aligned. I want us to have a history comprised of train tickets purchased out of good bad decisions, condom packages tossed passionately over but never in the bin, and unfinished rolls of Kodak films neither had the patience…

It was a rather childish game they used to play. “Boorish stuff,” one of them would’ve hypocritically proclaimed should they lose. As if to flaunt their youthfulness, they would sprint down (more like flying off) flights of stairs snaking in the tropical greenery that carpeted the hilly Hong Kong Island. The lush foliage would morph…

A steady tremolo (tr) disquieted the room, rippling out from their touched skin onto the bed, then onto the floor. An ambient mezzo piano (mp) commanded that Naush hold his breath, forcibly containing all that heaving by tightening his chest. Barely did he have space to wiggle at ease; their bodies and limbs were interlaced,…

She probably took three breaths, Vic thought. That’d be what Vic would’ve done. Take three long, deep breaths so the air enters the lungs, the bloodstream, and then the brain. Serena told him that it would clear his thoughts for better decision-making. So she probably did it too before she tore apart her report card…

It was the simplicity of it all that startled Ally. Had it always been this way? Hues seamlessly blended together, descending in a smooth gradient, dimmest with abysmal depth overhead and brightest with shallow sight at the line where the sky ceased and the landscape began. She found it hard to believe that the dome…

Let me cut you with it. Paper-thin, through the skin. It’d be a sharp incision. Hardly felt, barely seen, won’t leave a trail of evidence. At best, you’d get a beaded necklace, easily washed off with a confession. A little dry with some pressure. It’d be gone in a moment. So let me cut you…

The painter’s legs took over as his mind traveled far beyond the hustles and bustles teeming the raucous streets of Fez Souks. It was almost pitiful to think about it, that he was so ready to give, to spray lavishly onto the canvas his affection for the city, and that deep within there was an…

The children of the sun must’ve been mischievous again, stealing the lilac velour sack from their parent’s working desk and accidentally ripping it open at the seams. A shower of golden marbles rained down, weighty and burning, diving into the dark, cold, and endless blueness covering the massive playground. The violent drops sent waves of…

Ally likes to play a game she cannot sway in her favor, add some flavor, ’til she loses it forever. Allison was born a winner. Straight As through high school, two golds and one silver in swimming, and a piano teaching certificate at fifteen. She never added a wrinkle to her parents’ eyebrows. The principal…

When Mother finally walked into his room just past midnight, the 14-year-old Vic knew that it wasn’t for a nighttime story. He was too old for that. “I would let her next time,” Vic flared, clenching every word to prevent the trembles from escaping, “I would; I’m not joking.” “No, you wouldn’t,” there was so…