The word hung in the sterile air between them: Insufficient. A judgment passed down from a leather chair, sealed by the rustle of papers. Dr. Tanaka cleared his throat, his gaze fixed on a point just over Yumi’s shoulder. “The criteria for seidoitsusei shogai—gender identity disorder—are quite specific, you understand. We need a consistent, long-term…

The observatory at the top of the mountain has changed since we were here last spring. Some animals have moved in and the computer now runs slower and the NASA logo on the wall is flaking away like the patch on your old coat. Signs have fallen or disappeared along dark corridors leading to dark…

Lucky Snake My grandmother willed half of her thirty-acre farm estate to the young handyman who frequently visited her house to fiddle with the old wiring and oil the creaky doors, a leather toolbelt slung low on his hips. The document she’d printed from Wills.com stated that this was because he reminded her of my…

I saw a man get executed in the street today. Masked gunmen surrounded him before unloading a hail of bullets into his Carhartt jacket. I watched it on my phone during my lunch break in between eating a hard-boiled egg and checking my emails. Subject: Quarterly fiscal reports due this week. Respond. Delete. Subject: New…

I think I get what this person’s problem is, but could you say more? What do they want? What’s in their way? Have you considered giving them a fatal flaw? What if they’re just paranoid or too trusting or trapped in their own head?  Would anyone ever really call them that? Do people still say…

On the first day the ocean tried to take him back, Mara was the only one who noticed. Everyone else was busy being summer, slicked with sunscreen, loud with laughter, sweating into plastic cups of neon drinks. The beach was crowded with umbrellas blooming like bright fungi in the sand. Children shrieked at the hem…

The neighborhood kids get a kick out of it. They’re always trying to stump me, you know, name something I won’t mow over. But I’ll mow over just about anything. Nothing living, of course. Should go without saying. Tyrell Sleeveland — you know him, always with the runny nose, lives off Madison and Twinkle with…

Zeus was three years younger than Mother. Zeus could touch the basketball net without jumping.

For weeks, you’d been slipping. Collecting speeding tickets, lottery tickets, yelling at the neighbor’s boy, overfeeding the fish.

Chen Shu Ang often said that in her next life she wanted three things—to be reborn tall, to be a man (so no one could tell her what to do!) and to never leave her homeland. It went unsaid that she would once again be born in her beloved Taiwan.

Only this writer sees what’s happening in Ginny and David’s backyard. They are back there burying Tim’s dog. They’re sliding its tiny carcass into an almost equally tiny hole without any difficulty. Tim doesn’t even know his dog’s dead.

A smooth harmony floated throughout the living room. The woman’s soft tune was periodically accompanied by the lilt of her daughter’s voice and the hum of the music as they took their respective places on the couch and the clean hardwood floor. Surrounded by the comfort of their living room, the pair continued their duet…