5:23 a.m. It was another sleepless night. Kyungchul listened to the sound of rain pattering melancholy on the window. Another gloomy day. The last time he saw the sun seemed like weeks before…

The gentle sun warmed Xiao Hua’s back as she lay face down in the plush green grass. Her bright, beady eyes peered through the reeds surrounding the light blue pond…

The outbound train whooshes into the lower level of Park Street Station. The red and grey flashes before my eyes, the cars blurring into one…

This is how you cook, and this is how you wash the plates; this is how you sweep the floor; this is how you mop the floor; you want your house to be clean, and somebody needs to know how to do it...

Monday through friday, wake up early, go to school, head to football practice; lift

weights at the gym, go for a run during your free time...

As my grandmother led me into the crowded bazaar, a breeze blew the few strands of hair that had escaped my hijab out of my face...

The armchair was soft, crushed velvet on hardwood. It sat facing the lake...

“... The villain Ribald is currently engaged in a battle against the hero Phalanx atop City Hall...

The last waning rays of daylight peak through the tangled branches of the tree tops...

“The end of the Earth: Rockport, Mass,” proclaims Captain Pingree Full Hillier II, taking a deep breath of the salty morning breeze...

The fuzzy pink of early morning glowed a hazy blush through the bay window...

Farmer Paul paced amongst his pumpkins...

Electrophoresis. Three years ago, my ninth grade bio teacher informed me that Well, Lola, that’s something people in chalky white lab coats do on their quests to discover what is and what is not...

There was precisely one cloud in the sky the day Friedrich returned from fighting the Americans...

A boy and a girl went to a café together...

Three teenagers walked side by side down a path, deeper into the dense forest, navigating their way through the night...

“John. Jooohn?” John was sitting on the faded couch when the sound of the door opening made him flail around and scramble to put the damp, tinfoil-wrapped thing in his back pocket...

Her hands were always clasped tightly over her lap when she stood next to her husband in church...

“This is insane,” I mutter as we approach the glistening water...

At the end of the road sits her mother’s house, yellow paint peeling and foundation slowly settling into the dried riverbed on which it was built...

The steady, rhythmic pulsing of what Yuri calls a “hairspring” reeks of eighth grade science class and a dying frog...

When they are gone, we receive a call...

During the summer, my breakfast rarely coincided with that of my brother...

The desks in the Psychology 101 classroom were arranged in a semicircle...

The last thirty-six seconds of Finbar Web’s marriage ended fifteen minutes ago...

The human eye is incapable of proper sight, did you know that?

Naoma Miller had eyes the color of neon, and when she turned them on you, you could feel the aliens...

When I was five, I thought that losing a strand of hair meant I had cancer...

Food tastes better when you eat it with friends...

In the stories Mother tells, the sky is black and the air tastes like ash...

She is cigarette smoke stitched into a human frame, jacket tight like she needs it to keep her skeleton together, keep her bones from bursting free...

Once upon a time, an angel and a demon met in an office. They realized that they both played World of Warcraft, and hung out a lot more after that...

There are voices in her head...

“Mr. Winters?” Tim blinked groggily as the nurse’s voice woke him from his nap...

The knell rang out over the rooftops, and faded into the dark clouds that hung low, nearly swallowing up the very tip of the church steeple...

You will probably never find me without my iPod and oversized orange headphones, but my record player is my preferred method of listening to music...

George watched, perplexed, as his mother paced nervously back and forth...

The happiness comes blazing in...

I feel like a drenched blanket's been swaddled around me, suffocating my heart...

The baby girl came screaming into the room and slipped easily into the nurse's hands just like hundreds before her...

I wake well before the first light, waltz to the bathroom, sing in the shower, and purr to the kiss of my razor...

Plunk. I look at her still face...

My identification is available in my primary databanks, under the file self-ID...

Achilles! wanna join the football team?

“What’s a girl like you doing in a cheap joint like this?”

It was a consolation prize on your sister’s ninth birthday, when you were still young enough to think that presents for one meant presents for all...

There is never any light in my farmhouse...

Cold, brown, disinterested eyes flick over mine briefly...

 “I adore you,” I repeat...

Manlio Vargas and his wife had a contract with a certain family...

Margaret bustled into the room, rattling off numbers from her clipboard...

You’ll feel a pinch, then a burn...

“I will suck you you!” yelled Vroomvroombleepbop...

The wind rushed across the ocean, curiously lifting the flaps of Bran’s jacket and swiping at his face...

As always, he had come home to my lifted cheek and a sputtering fireplace, and, as always, I had avoided his gaze as he kissed me...

You had promised me you would come home...

The virtual display in front of him showed a vast expanse of stars, cold white pinpricks stark against the inky blackness of space...

You should be women, you know, you girls know knothing about akny-thing...

There’ve been enough rays through these old bones that they’ll still be glowing in a hundred years...

 I saw my older sister Maggie throw up the spaghetti and meatballs she’d eaten for dinner in the toilet upstairs...

Let’s start with the facts. Numbers are always good, right?

Rose Hensley raced down the beach, her small feet splashing in the waves..

Dr. John Campbell yawned as he poured his coffee into a large mug on his countertop...

Jenny, Julie, and Jesse were such good friends that they knew exactly how to hurt each other...

Years later, when Esmeralda was buffering floors at the elementary school, she would recall the night she lost her name...

Today, the necrophiles infested...

It was not often that Kevin Kravitz found himself lying, let alone lying to his family...

Night lies gently over the world, misting the sky over with its thick haze...

You’ve found me even more insufferable than usual today. The door frame may give out if you slam it again...

Chunchi Zhu crunches on a mouthful of wasabi nuts as she examines a thin steel needle...

We glanced nervously at the dark clouds as the biting wind tugged at our jackets...

I believe that I will never forget Bivouac...

 The darkness engulfed his every thought as he sat on a cold, stone bench...

The sunlight sloughs off the water like runny makeup in many shades...

Charlotte had a soothing voice. Or, at least, that’s what everyone told her back at Civilization...

The sky was to be heaven and the earth a temporary restin’ spot for the soul...

he holds a small box with a tightly closed lid...

Fifteen years, seven months and twenty-one days ago, a rabbit-headed blanket was first opened from within yellow tissue paper...

The disappointment in writing prose can be guessed by subtracting a work’s real quality from that perceived upon completion, then assigning a rank between one and ten...