The little girl came into her papa’s study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began: “Well, once there was a little pig–“ She put her hand over his […]
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. […]
BANG! BANG! BANG! Molly was distracted from the pot of chili she always seemed to be preparing by the clamorous clatter at her kitchen door. Licking the spoon with which she had been stirring the concoction, she replaced it on the spoon rest and stepped to the door. Opening it wide, she was unsurprised to […]
A long time ago, when there was no internet or smartphones, a young Iranian man lived with his grandparents in a small town in India—or as Iranians call it, Hindustan. Parsa had been raised by his grandma Molood and grandpa Jamal since he was two, after his parents died in a plane crash on a […]
It was noon of a bright winter’s day. The air was crisp with frost, and Nadia, who was walking beside me, found her curls and the delicate down on her upper lip silvered with her own breath. We stood at the summit of a high hill. The ground fell away at our feet in a […]
The Maple Tree Inn started life as a rich man’s farmhouse. “Old Nick’s a rich man, indeed,” my father told me. “He won’t eat hot dogs.” We lived over the ridge from Nick and there was a rolling pasture where I’d train my binoculars on Nick as he hobbled about on his cane. One day […]
A daughter was born one day to the King of a prosperous kingdom. She was christened Malade. She was a very even-tempered and pleasant girl, and a joy for her father to behold, until one day she was afflicted with a tremor about her features. A severe juddering affected her hands and face, and was […]