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Fiction

Yinying­—Shadow

Since Mother’s death, a changeling was all I could be. Father said so before he himself passed, “A real child, a real daughter, our daughter, would never cause death, would never bring death upon this family.” Mother named me Yangguang—sunlight. But Father changed it to Yinying—shadow—for robbing his love of her light. But she told […]

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Perhaps in Understanding

Yilien likes the masks. She likes that her meaning cannot be misconstrued, that when she dons Politeness no one can accuse her of overcaution or indecisiveness, the way her parents did in her childhood. When she has the right mask, she doesn’t have to speak. When Mirnai shows up in her walled garden half an […]

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A Soul in the World

There’s nothing quieter than the sound of dreams not coming true. The moment when reality sinks in and Gwen realizes she’s never going to have the one thing she’s been yearning for since high school—the thing she made so much space in her life to accommodate—has almost no soundtrack. Distant car-tire rumbles, the stutter of […]

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Bad Doors

The country was at just over ten thousand deaths the morning that the door appeared. On Kosmo’s phone NPR was interviewing a doctor with a nasal voice about the need for social distancing, while Kosmo himself collected empty cans from around his home office. They were everywhere. Walls of recyclable cans dominated his room. Just […]

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One Man’s Treasure

Aden had never once forgotten his gear for bulk trash day, but he found it touching that Nura still taped a monthly reminder note on the door from the kitchen to the garage. Sweet of her to remember, given how exhausted med school had her these days. He ducked out to the garage to toss […]

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Prospect Heights

In 1981, Amelia moved to New York City. Brooklyn. Specifically, Prospect Heights, where she rented a room in a rooming house on a street of four-story brownstones. Her room had ornate molding and a white marble fireplace veined in gray that had been bricked up. Her landlady told her never to go to up the […]

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The Father Provincial of Mare Imbrium

Out of an abundance of caution, and as a condition of its funding and founding, the Jesuit lunar colony established in the southwest corner of Mare Imbrium was subject to Curial censorship, with violators placed under interdict. That did not stop the occasional enterprising regent from smuggling out, by shuttle and courier, the green silicon […]

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