Connor’s grandfather leaned over him, cracked lips making a tortured “O.” In that long moment all he could hear was the depthless pulse of the world. His grandfather wasn’t a mean man. He never raised his voice to Connor, and he certainly never raised his hand. The old man supplied his grandson with unsettling lessons […]
It was only a few weeks after my mother’s funeral when my father told me not to come home again. If not for the coldness of his voice, I might have assumed he was passive-aggressively trying to shame me for having stayed for so short a time, having returned to my son and my husband. […]
They found the first coffin in North America, in Vancouver, BC, at a graveyard. The slender mahogany box was no larger than the forearm of a child of ten. The workers were digging up a slot for an upcoming burial of an important political figure that I were hired to document. This was meant to […]
Nothing lasts forever. Not Christmas, with its bright lights and spangled promises of good things that never quite come to pass. Not the dreams of magic that it conjures for children everywhere. Not even Krampus, with his sack of coal and his cold heart. Even villains grow old and achy, age softening their sharp edges, […]
Here it is, your father says as he pulls up to the club, the car headlights making bright meat of the young people queuing outside. The eater of my youth, he says, so many good nights here, proper good, lad, you have no idea. He licks his lips and says a name that could be […]
I kept my right eye closed because I saw ghosts through it. My parents thought they were imaginary friends I would soon outgrow—they weren’t. But what did they know anyway? “One—or two?” my optometrist asked, switching lenses. “Two,” I said. He repeated the process until I recited the words on the eye exam chart a […]
At dusk, Benji watched the other boys make a game out of turning on every light in every room they could find, until all of Palazzo di Bacco glittered on its bluff high above the Pacific like a neoclassical temple of marble and light illuminated from within. Their pretentious host—who names his own house “Palazzo […]
When they first come to our street, the blue jacarandas are in bloom, like they always are from September to December. Darkened seed pods fell on the pavement and crack under their shoes like eggshells, tiny bits of wood flying everywhere. It’s so beautiful, they tell us, smiling, eyes on the trees. It’s so beautiful […]
. . . an per oblationes sacrilegas infantes Dæmonibus offerentes poßit ipsa Hæresis augmentari . . . . . . whether these demons are able to abet their heretical powers through unholy oblations of children . . . —Malleus Malificarum (Witches’ Hammer, 1486) I was just home from school when a woman all in black nearly knocked me down. There was a stain on her […]
The man is sandwiched in a crowd by the turn leading into Egbunike street where Tega lives. “It is magic! My life changed when I discovered it.” The man’s voice is replete with vigour. His outfit bears a semblance to the original FENDI, unlike the labels masterfully sewn at Aba. His shoes catch the evening […]
