by zamora | October 19, 2023
An old man boards in front of us. He leans on a cane, lifts his right leg up too high and drops it down clumsily with each step. I choose not to hurry around him, not because we’re supposed to stand six feet back, only because I no longer see the point of rushing. My...
by zamora | October 19, 2023
You used to be friends with this girl Carmen. Her mom died in a car accident when the two of you were still in high school. That afternoon, Carmen came home to cops and her aunt who’d flown in from Miami, then ran the two miles to your house and whispered,...
by zamora | October 19, 2023
The brushed cotton was soft against her fingers. Though yellowed with age and darkened by dirt around the hem, the robe had been well cared for. Tucked between layers of tissue paper, it resided on the top shelf of the bookcase, above a picture of the bride and groom...
by zamora | October 19, 2023
Lucia had been idly reading a book on race and America by a prominent Nigerian author when she flipped to the end of the book and found an Italian man—a Renaissance man to boot—responsible for the typeface used to print the book. She wondered about this, the words of...
by zamora | October 19, 2023
The morning of her abortion, a boy appears on Olive’s doorstep and introduces himself as her future son. It is not strange. Or: the boy is not a stranger. She has seen him before, the time-traveling ghost of him preserved in the...
by zamora | October 19, 2023
“Alright, now straight back!” Rita called as she directed my midsize between the absurdly narrow white lines of the guest parking lot beside her apartment. She was small in my mirror, with jet black hair and a fantastically...
by zamora | October 17, 2023
Had it been anything other than what it was, it would have been beautiful. The texture was that of heavy cream as was the color – white with just a hint of gold. It was thick, luminous and, when she held it up to the light, the tiny drop on her finger...
by zamora | October 17, 2023
We’re in the car and Lou is reading the exit signs on the New York Thruway. Exit 17—Newburgh; Exit 18—New Paltz; Exit 19—Kingston. When I was young we never got past Exit 19, where we got off to visit Aunt Jane, but now Lou and I are going past 20 and 21, all the way...
