Fiction

Tangerine

Tangerine

I once kept a tangerine in my purse. I watched it turn leathery, sweet and puckered. Eventually, there was nothing to it at all, just a dried-up husk. I once kept a tangerine in my purse. I watched it turn leathery, sweet and puckered. Eventually, there was nothing to...

Five Full-Colour Dreams of a Young Marie Curie

Five Full-Colour Dreams of a Young Marie Curie

Dream # 1: Diogenes Lights the Lamp “Come, child,” Diogenes takes me by the hand. “Let me show you the way.” His fingers are gnarled and twisted, ancient twigs. Dream # 1: Diogenes Lights the Lamp “Come, child,” Diogenes takes me by the hand. “Let me show you the...

Vagina Dentata

Vagina Dentata

Our 2015 Fiction Contest Honourable Mention. After the conference, in which we distinguished ourselves modestly on a number of issues – the colonial, the survival, the post-colonial, the post-survival, the structuralist, the deconstructivist, the Freudian, the...

What Grows

What Grows

Once, upon a day of politics trouble, I saw my mother burying her gold in the vegetable and herb garden at the back of our house. It was a school day, but I was at home because she had pulled me out of class that morning. My class, all girls, had been waiting for our...

Waiting

Waiting

You are the worst waitress in the world. You can’t remember orders, or you write them down so messily that they’re indecipherable. When you try to read them out to the chefs you can’t untangle the scribble, and you have to go back to the table and ask again. You are...

Gardenia

Gardenia

Saul sat almost peacefully staring blankly at the aquarium in the waiting room, watching the neon fish cut their way through the water. When the blonde nurse entered the room, Saul wanted to tell her to sit down. Pour herself a cup of coffee. He knew what she was...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Our 2014 Fiction Contest Honourable Mention. Lost Rain threatened almost every single day that summer though not once did it actually rain—even their relationship felt a menace in this. Things between them were strained and awkward, they felt the air and the heat and...

The Party

The Party

We get to the party. We say hello to our hosts. We take off our coats. The party is crowded. We fight our way through to the kitchen. We load our plates with food. We sit in a corner. There are a lot of people. There are mathematicians and physicists ... We get to the...

Reel

The astronaut on screen is crying. From the moon he has finally managed to call his daughter, only her face on the videophone shows no flare of recognition. He’s been gone so long he has become someone else to her. The astronaut on screen is crying. From the moon he...

Snatch and Release

Manolo called it the Everybody Laughs Scam, but as I approached the couple on the bench I found that prospect hard to imagine. The woman looked teary-eyed and the man had the strap of his camera bag wrapped three times around his fist. Manolo called it the Everybody...

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ROOM 47.4 FULL CIRCLE
Step back with Room into the past, to parents, to childhood homes, and to people once known and loved; dig into themes of grief and healing; and ultimately explore what it means to come full circle in literature.

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