Do you know a secret about dragonflies? When I was a little girl, I would sometimes run away from my math classes and go to the river banks near my school for some very serious reasons. Reason one, I hated…
‘Marketing at the Sunset Boulevard’ by Muhammad Ashfaq (Pakistan)
Time and women – in combine if not collusion – had done him enough in life to add an extra decade to his face, gazing deep into his still eye-balls in the rearview-mirror he imagined, and slowly turned the newly-imported…
‘Karen Love Song of Wha Pwo’ by George Diaz Evashuk (Canada)
While on an off-road trek in Karen hill tribe lands on Doi Inthanon in Thailand’s northern Chiang Mai province, I came across a remarkable young poet. After five hours of traversing difficult terrain during the rainy season with my guide,…
‘Cursed…’ by Norden Michael Lepcha (India)
She was impatiently walking to and fro in her room. Any time the phone would ring, and that would mean him. Maya was expecting her husband’s call from America. Maya was born Kalimpong. Her father was a clerk in a…
‘The Bad Spirit’ by Jude Ortega (The Philippines)
In the hinterlands of Cotabato region, among the Manobo people, roams a spirit called fegelilong. It is one of the most feared and despised spirits, for it makes fun of the human heart and kills mostly young men. The fegelilong…
‘Looking for Sharma’ by Julie Kearney (Australia)
When the boulders appear on the horizon glowing pinkly above a fringe of coconut trees, I see they’re the same as ever, still heaped into fantastic mountains as if thrown down to earth by some playful giant. I can’t take…
‘Search for the Non-Existent’ by Yamini Vijendran (India)
As I wipe the sweat off my forehead, the lift operator looks at me quizzically, and then at the temperature indicator in the lift. It reads 20 degree centigrade, making the man quip, “What Saar! Two months only in America…
‘Art Class’ by Michael Jerome (UK)
I knew Yumi from my art classes in Central, where I sometimes attended to brush up on my drawing skills. It was therapeutic relaxation really. She attended most weeks and would arrange a ‘stand in’ if she couldn’t make it,…
‘Rats and Cats’ by Timothy Nakayama (Malaysia)
Short story selected for the 2013 New Asian Writing Short Story Anthology They say that if you find yourself in the slums of downtown Kuala Lumpur and if you hear the wind playing a haunting dirge on a starlit night,…
‘Museum for the Macabre’ by George Diaz Evashuk (Canada)
BANGKOK — The Kingdom’s most notorious serial killer used to cook and eat the organs of his victims, mostly children. I was on my way to have a look at him. He was in the Museum of Forensic Science which…
‘Dreams for Rita’ by Julia Tan (Malaysia)
Penang, Malaysia 1997 It was late afternoon, and Rita was in the kitchen. She was sweating through her sleeveless green blouse, which created dark patches on her chest and underarms. She wasn’t bothered – the humidity was nothing to her.…