The One Who Carries Abinakhee Has Died

by Jay Kang Romanus

I’m leaning in to kiss a stranger when the shooting star passes overhead. The sounds of people celebrating nearby swim through the humid air like the ancient turtle below us swims through the world’s ocean and the shooting star above swims through waves of night sky. I’m still breathing heavy from my performance, glowing from the warmth of so many eyes on me and the warmth of the stranger’s body next to me.

“Did you see it?” I ask, momentarily distracted from his well-shaped lips. He nods.

“My mother used to say they were the starships of those who left us behind.” He smiles at me with those extremely well-shaped lips. “I don’t think she was right about that, though.”

Cheering spikes through the quiet before fading away and it seems short-sighted to be spending the rare occasion of a funereal confluence with just one person, in the town I’ve spent my whole life in, on the back of the Great One whose shell has been the borders of my entire world since I was born. But he is a stranger, he wouldn’t be here without the confluence, and that’s my excuse for short-sightedness. (Continue Reading…)

A Long Tango Across A Canopy of Whispering Leaves

By Anita Harris Satkunananthan

The return of the last Festival King was not mere rumour.

Half a dozen heralds from Marip preceded his return, with a new summons from the Steward. Dusk-skinned youth dressed in flowers and skin-tight, fluorescent-blue breeches had read the proclamations from east to west. The Steward was returning the last Festival King. A new Festival King would be crowned at the duels. In the summons were also the names of four hopefuls, chosen from amongst the descendants of former Kings.

Melur’s name had been listed as one of the candidates. It was not a surprise to Melur who had been sleeping within the weave of the forests’ consciousness for twenty-five years since the disappearance of her lover. For those years, the Festival had been Kingless. It was a gap that was unprecedented for the Mykologosia. There had been Festivals for as long as there had been humans inhabiting the sentient mushroom dwellings, and there had always been Kings. But now, there was to be another duel. And if Melur was chosen, she would be the one duelling her lover, as they had both promised each other that night. (Continue Reading…)

Waterways

by Diana Dima

When his father died and left him the boat, he thought to himself, I can do it. I’m a boat-son, a boat-man, I’m no longer a child and no longer have to go home at sunset, when mother and sisters gather around the table and talk about the will and the debts. In the will his father had written to my son, who may yet feel at home on the water. So David spent days in the yard, scrubbing and polishing and waxing, and often fell asleep under the boat tarp in the cool May night.

When he left, he did look back at the hunched house and the village, faint as a smear of dirt on the green and the blue. He did feel a pang of guilt deep under the ribs. But mostly he was driven like a powerboat, like a steering wheel under his father’s hand. So he steered toward the northern shores where they used to go fishing for pike and drop anchor for the night in quiet coves. (Continue Reading…)