“I have a theory,” she said on their first date, which was at an Indian restaurant where the music was a lovely singsong but the chef seemed enraged as he clapped a ball of dough between his hands, then threw it into the flames. And her date, whom she…

I wonder if she is my real mother, if I could get one of those paternity tests and find out if she’s my real mother and if the guy she told me was my father was really my father. I can’t remember him very well, just a lot of him screaming and hollering an

It is not unusual for farmers to see the future before it’s begun—but I am not speaking here only of the need to hope but more. . . .

There were security guards running all over the place. Campus police cars, with lights flashing, at various locations in the distance. Sora gripped her books tight as they saw their dormitory building ahead.

The temperature would drop rapidly once the sun hit the horizon. I had about an hour before this would happen. I stood and put on my coat. The fire had gone out. There was no smoke...

Remember the equatorial heat, the flies,/ the lurking hum and scream of jungle,/ the squalor? Remember the functionary.

I lift up my sweatshirt and reach with a full fist into my belly button. This is where the fat comes out.

Sitting in the car, John had the urge to kill himself.

You gather their faces in the palms of your hands and their purple eyes blink, blink, unseeing.

Emi watched the Perez sisters show each other support. It brought back memories of Mayumi giving her support, even fighting for her.

When sixth-grade science teacher Pat Farrell assigns an earth-science lab on measuring crystals, the girls collect their materials, read the directions and follow the sequence from beginning to end. The first thing boys do is ask, “Can we eat this?"

My dad was an Army Reservist stationed in the U.S.—New York and Texas—the bugler in his corps. He golfed on summer weekends at Hazeltine in the course of his career. I had seen houses water colored prettily within the lines on L.S.D., after noticing not

She has dwindled for the better part of a year, staved off her period, breasts and hips like a warrior. Chestnut strands that danced along candy apple cheeks now surrender to metal pins, her bun severe as an old maid's. Her prominent ears…

years later, she won’t go near the trees

She turned him down again. Said it was her insomnia. She was so tired, she said, she had to work in the morning, and why couldn't he understand that? She rolled over facing away from him. He sat up in bed, thinking. When was the last time? Three months ago? Four? He…