The neighbors two doors down are aliens. From space. We pretend not to know. They arrive at our door with bottle-green skin, their eyebrows small flitting tentacles, and their child, the individual we’ve always presumed to be their child, gripping their impossibly smooth three-fingered hands. The wife, we think, carries the trick-or-treat bag. “We buried our landing craft in the hills southwest of town,” the husband tells us. “Ha ha. This is only a joke I make. Trick and treat.” “It is not …
It did not bother Claire so much when the dying pigeon lay still, in the middle of the sidewalk, panting, wide‑open eyes darting here and there. She could reckon with it then, keep its agony in place. There was something close to dignity about the bird—as though it could be believed that it had come to a place of acceptance of its fate. That it was doing its utmost to die a dignified, stoic death. Two other women, random pedestrians, had stopped alongside Claire to stare down at the injured …
Dad’s beat-up white Renault sat at the far end of our little cul-de-sac, one front wheel up on the pavement and the rear end stuck out miles from the curb. Back from work early meant he’d already have a glass of whiskey in one hand, remote control in the other, staring at some quiz show on the telly. Instead, I found him in the lounge—perhaps already two-sheets to the wind—on his hands and knees, pulling irritably at a knot of flashing Christmas tree lights Mum had bought in the sales last …
Rosy’s baby is chestnut-colored and bow-legged. She wears spots like scars. There’s a splotch in the center of her forehead like, in another life, she was shot dead. There’s one on the soft part of her neck like, maybe once upon a time, something took a bite of her. There are some at the bottom of her skinny legs like, perhaps, she crawled out of the Earth while something tried to pull her back in. Rosy’s baby can’t moo, so her mama has become acquainted with the sound of her baby’s hooves on …
“Food” on a yellow balloon “Accommodation” on a pink balloon “Freedom” on a blue balloon “Language” on a green balloon “Education” on an orange balloon Set them free, please tell the world the needs we are asking for now will be paid back after we grow up. We came here through overloaded boats, which almost turned over during storms. We were told it was our temporary stay, we will be brought to another place of peace and safety, where we “might” unite with our parents. We are …
1 Every day we carry a creeping calamity on our shoulders. Every day the burden becomes harder to bear, more difficult to ignore, but we are well-versed in pretending. We choose not to look at the poisoned, swelling oceans, at the gathering clouds above, because these are problems for others. When decline falls across our sunlit path, we squint and stumble, curse our tired feet and broken footing, lay blame everywhere else. Surely the wretched animals did this to us somehow—ungrateful! And …