MADDALENA POLEGGI I met Olive at the library, she was strange but familiar. At the time I couldn’t know that we were going to spend a few months together, sharing our deepest thoughts and so many intimate details of our…
Olive
Clio’s Kingdom
Sitting by the Harbour
JOHN IRVING CLARKE Every hour, as regular as the muezzin calling the faithful, the ferry rumbles in a wide arc across the bay. The engines grumble and the propellers expel a wash which slops loudly against the quayside walls. The…
Forget Me Not
JOHN IRVING CLARKE When he woke, the woman was standing over him. He took in his surroundings – the scrubby bushes under which he’d thrown himself, the wind barging through the paltry shelter, the darkening sky – and he would…
Moonlight visions
SILVANO GREGOLI. THE 60s, AREA OF PIAN DELLA TURA Mondovì, Saturday afternoon, Piazza Adua. Spring is at its fullest but the mountains are still white. We, the people of the refuge, are ready to get on our Vespa and Lambretta…
What Else Would the Son of a Cat Do…?
GABRIEL ROSENSTOCK What Else Would the Son of a Cat Do…? …only kill a mouse! Of course! I have been a member of Gaels Anonymous for fourteen years now, I’d say. Maybe longer, even? You’d think I’d remember, considering how fateful a…
From the Diary of a Kitchen Hand
SILVIA PIO I got myself hired because I wanted to be close to him, to hear him swiftly swirl only ten steps away from me. I cheated on my education to get this job, the only one available in his…
My Boobs and I
FADWA AL QASEM They just don’t let me be. And so, I’m ever alone; they’re always with me. If I try to forget, to be oblivious to their presence, I don’t succeed. For the slightest movement causes them to wriggle,…