Los Angeles never slept, not really. Its neon pulse kept beating across the cracked sidewalks of Figueroa, in the dead glow of streetlights, in the humming vibrations of cars slowing down just long enough to negotiate, watch, or judge. It was a city built on...
A neon sign blinking “BAR” hung outside but everyone called it the Oak Room. Patrons professed this started as a joke, an irony, a way of saying the old joint in no way resembled The Plaza. Yet a faded grandeur pervaded. Perhaps customers of an earlier era coined the...
She is soaring through the woods, chapped goat feet noiseless over the carpet of pine needles. Doe eyes and pink cheeks, dreadfully wise, a fiery glowing Atalanta. That is how I remember Manisha. Carrying my baby brother securely in her arms as she scrambles up...
There isn’t much in life that you can’t grow accustomed to, Mary says to no one. With enough time, with enough exposure, even the experiences that once would have made you scream will instead be rendered mundane. You’ll grow accustomed to ice-cold baths, the kind that...
By Selena Lin Once upon a time, a young woman desired the best for her children. Well, not just for them. For herself as well, as whatever riches and glory the children would come to possess would become hers as well. Such devoted children they were, and knew the...
By Aleshia Passantino Pain. Pain, Bena thought, as she grabbed her chest and fell to her knees. The lawn mower slowed its growl. Her hands slipped from the clutch of the handle that she had held so tight to. Oh God, not now, not like this. Her body lay on the ground...