Peoria, Arizona
Matthew (M): Thank you, for wanting to take this interview with us, again. Mr. Gebreyesus (G): Of course. M: A couple of years since your last interview? G: Yeah, haha. M: So, on that note, did you feel nervous the first time around? G: Not nervous, but more so curious […]
“Davey, you got some more blue?” David leers for his alloy nightstand that echoes out a great ring whenever his wrist nicks the side. Out he pulls some aqua-blue mouthwash from the bottom drawer and tosses it into my hand. Brittle-boned fingers unscrew the ribbed cap and a few gulps ache my throat into new […]
She produces a crumpled coffee filter, flying it down to her feet as she wipes the sweat off her tanned brow. “Catori.” She kept at her work, padding down pelts of cow dung; a bottle of horse piss sits with the rest of her workstation: a corporal’s spyglass, mason jars full of chartreuse powder, and […]
Lumbering down the mouth of the cavern, the prospector drags his browned pickaxe from its beak and grates his grey teeth together and rushes along so his denim curls down to his ankles. Gray-wisped scavenger looking for some treasure in a place that has none—there exists no last-ditch salvation that will turn around his failure […]
AI, computer science, and software engineering are the fields of knowledge that promise us the soon-to-be life of sci-fi: 3D pill printers, real-time blood scanners, and phone-based checkups; however, with how excited we look to our futures, we often forget the phenoms that once inspired the roots of ancient science: electricity. From the stories […]
He whisks from bar to brothel to road, horse huffing more in every turn. The moon was his only sight—he found its reflection in glass and eyes. Cards and whiskey cycle his nights. He would stumble slow and vomit quick and relieve himself where he could. Made way into some place off Nacogdoches: the gambling […]
The old man comes home, his shack just along the outskirts of Reno. No Comanches, no Spaniards, no Americans—only him and his wife. The dishes full of that infamous cow feed cheap to buy and cheap to taste. He tosses his wide-brim cap on that torn chair and the oil lantern slicks the room in […]
A bend in the desert the two spirits follow. Old man’s shoulders long dragged down with golden weight as he leads horse. Steps go by slow, quick, and slow; even soundlessly tracks old man as the wind yokes his hair into quick braids. Horse has her clop-clop-clop as the only noise in the natural wastes—ferric […]
Low-beam headlights gloss the Welcome to Stonefield in a humming Cadillac fat with rusting streaks and wide dents. Pastel pines stand nicely at sideroads and just ahead is free country littered with a few leftover houses. The radio sticks from its slot like some rude head and the button glitters there from moonlight alone. Fog […]
It’s been nearly two years since Russia occupied Ukraine; if there was an international backlash then, the now domestic turmoil has definitely turned it twofold. There looks to be a quaint coup d’etat going on in Russia, with some of Vladimir Putin’s most trusted associates staking their chances in the power throws of a politically […]
All ringing after the explosion, he turns to find only sundered limbs and expired blood; he rushes past his work and bares the second stick and lights its fuse. The dynamite sends into the base of the western wall and some erratic movement can still be heard in the smokescreen. Another boom shakes the wall […]
“He drank so much out of fear and disappointment with himself, that he locked himself in his room until he drank so much his stomach sloshed out of his body, and all he could feel was the paining explosion of once-repressed grief and misery and he called out for his wife and children that he […]
He lumbers back into the street, and it is midday—the town marinates him in decrepit isolation and base instincts. Some desert fauna nest in the slacks of ramada steps, and their white orbs pop in their adumbration. The vicious curs gnaw at a felled calf donning pustular cysts on its udder and diseased rashes in […]
The ringleader offered him a dollar if he would stay for the show, so the young desperado did. He was fingering the smooth-bore barrel of his revolver as a few militias bustled around a few shop ramadas—a handful of dirty-faced children roamed afront of the wagon carts reared before the town hall, their caretakers staggered […]
He shoots down a tin can behind the saloon and the bartender tells him he did well. He lumbers atop dog whelks and broken shells back to the hitching post and feeding troughs where he propped up the ancient containers of spirits and liqueurs. Aching and stretching his back, the man returns the shot metal […]
The rivulets cut into the ground, making a nice latticework of blue-steel water. The eggy sun shone down streams of shine; the grass and its roots hugging the ground in hopes of getting only an ounce of water. Jeremiah scooped his hand into the ground to taste the sediment– he wanted to know if the […]
He clicked open the slot for Mr. Stein’s niche and the drawer poofed some dust in the air– his father left him his watch, and he carefully removed it from its ancient recess and shoved it into his coat pocket. The columbarium was wide and open and dark and cold; he felt like it was […]
Fine loam and overworked soil crunched under his feet as he made his way along the basin. Storm clouds rolled along in the twilight peace. The din of silence enraptured him under the blue-indigo blend of the sky. Dotting the endless plane before him, ocotillo and creosote dipped into their silhouettes. Valleys and bluffs—limestone, obsidian, […]
Some flat rocks made some disparate noise as they tumbled down the lee of the cliffside and snuffed out some of the rustling of the rodents in the grass and the swooping of the wattlebirds. My tongue was sticking heavily to the butt of the mouth, and I tried reaching for the canteen at my […]
Paris is nice in the Springtime—the sun shines unquestionably the grass stands always. My shirt began to billow in the crisp wind, and bird chirps poured into my ears while the coarse path scratched at my boots as I made my way toward a bobbing shore. The plains’ blades of grass still padded along the […]
Though the panic surrounding the fentanyl crisis has died down, the detriments of the drug epidemic continue to run deep into many lives. Public address of the crisis has definitely educated American youth in avoidance and restraint; consequently, the desperation for sellers to find a way to market their notorious drugs has weasled its way […]
Russia recently made a politically bombastic move to invade Ukraine and other Eastern-bloc European nations to liberate the Ukraine separatist movement. Although Russia is the only state recognizing the independence of the off-shooting Ukrainian sovereignty, the invasion is made out as the culmination of a Russian-Ukrainian alliance that acknowledges the rebelling states of Donetsk and […]
The nation’s justice system is once again going to be monumentally shifted with the retirement of long-standing Justice Stephen Breyer in his 28 years of service from the Supreme Court. Through debating the constitutionality of the death penalty and arguing for the justice of abortion, Breyer quickly made a name for himself since his original […]
Mental illness, substance abuse, and self-identity are serious topics easily ignored in today’s world. While our society promotes talk about these sensitive ideas, it still takes serious confidence to have that conversation even with those closest to us. Working with concerned friends or family members can get us to open up, but that feeling of […]