My grandmother chain-smoked Virginia Slims, the long, white, pleasingly perfect cylinders a permanent fixture in the corner of her mouth.
My grandmother chain-smoked Virginia Slims, the long, white, pleasingly perfect cylinders a permanent fixture in the corner of her mouth.
A gust of frigid wind startles me as the scraggly-bearded stranger opens the passenger door and demands we drive him home.
Two of my cousins are profusely talking about their holiday to Japan.
Bzzz—the sound of the drone flies over the Beirut skies.
The principal’s eyes bulged behind square glasses.
My four-year-old daughter flits around the bedroom, darting, and I’m panicked she will collide with a sharp corner.
The older kids are playing a word-guessing game with our mothers.
Here comes another familiar face. Dang, he's looking this way!
If the world slipped off its axis and unravelled into oblivion, this is the moment that would play on the screen of my mind.
My mother collapsed on a cruise ship and was airlifted to California.
I rolled out the dough, transmuting kneaded ball into disc.
I was on my knees in the wheelchair, facing the hospital security guard.
Our preschool class prepped for the celebratory “roll to the bottom”; fifteen bodies, head to toe, with one hair-raising goal in mind.
Tears partway up the mountain because she’s collected too many rocks and we tell her she can’t carry them all to the top.
The truck stops. Today is the day they come to get the wheelchair.
New Year’s Eve night, 1979. The Neelachal Express is hurtling down the tracks at full speed.
My twin grandsons were tired and hungry, and the trip from their preschool to my place was fraught with arguments, crying, and punching.
Pim suddenly elbow-strikes my jaw and somersaults to say, “Hope you like soup, motherfucker …
The elevator door opened to chaos. A patient was coding.
You’ve got one stick, one match. Build me a fire, he says.