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THE FIREFLIES

This tale is for Mark Brownrigg It had been a strange week in this village on top of the Antipolo hills. The days were cool, and night hid itself beneath a thick, blanket of wool. But I liked this change in the weather, so different...

Don’t Follow Me, I Don’t Even Know Where I’m Going

“The past is not the past. The future doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up idea. Every mapping what we do of the future is a fabrication of our imagination.” – Patrick Somerville Marielle Gaston—fourth square on the third of many rows of faces staring back...

NIGHT ADDICT

For months following the death of his father, the boy did not sleep. Not a single wink for a single hour, every day, every week, every month for almost a year. No doctor or hospital could help six-year-old Rico, and every time the doctors...

Examination

It was two p.m. on a weekday, and she was in the city, in leather shoes that pinched, a hot polyester acrylic blend blouse that was tight at the armpits, and dark pants. The pants were the only thing that fit her fine....

Killing Trees Softly

They were killing us softly it hurt so bad.  Softly, slowly, exceedingly painful. Think of an open wound left to rot under the sun. Dust and dirt, soil and sand blowing over, exacerbating, not reducing the pain.     The killers, with neither heart nor mercy, came early...

Three Baggies, One for Each of Us

“Did you get it?” Tobi asked, though he already knew the answer just by the look on Jimwel’s face. “Three baggies, one for each of us,” the younger boy said.“Your mother won’t notice?” Greg asked. “I fudged the numbers on her records,” Jimwel said. “Even...

Random Pickings

By the Brook

I Nina’s eyes peer above the cover of a nameless book. She wasn’t reading, no. Her eyes are fixed on the distant figure of her...

Washout

I So in a fit of righteous anger I washed the pots pans plates bowls knives spoons glasses even cleaned the kitchen sink and the drawers, which I haven’t...

The Bandit Who Banished the Aswangs

YOU NEVER FELT so secure before…. Hovering above the now-unshackled pristine and fertile triangular island of 1566 Bamban were familiar crimson cumulus clouds. Fresh...

Reflections on the Void

I’ll begin with a crude reduction of La Bruyere’s opening paragraph from Les Characteres: Nothing here is meant to be the first of its...