Isabel Meyers

imeyers20

The Last Day of the Off-Season

May 17, 2017 Dispatches

Townsend, Tennessee, US

Tomorrow is Spring Break – Monday, the start of the season – and kids and families and everyone will come. But tonight it’s still quiet (has been since the day after Thanksgiving), and I have the motel and the campfire and the geese all alone.

The trees say nothing of spring. They speak only of winter, with their bark and branches.

Only three cars are parked at the motel. Two big trucks and mine. Townsend is right next to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The town calls itself “the quiet side of the Smokies.” Seventeen miles down the two-lane Highway 321 is the other, not quiet side of the Smokies: Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood.

Dancing in 4/4 Time

April 30, 2017 Fiction, Issue 13, Issue 13 Fiction

By MAX ROSS

1.

Among the snowy houses, a small woman in a white wool coat shoveled a path from the street to her front door. Meanwhile snow was falling, gathering slowly on the path being cleared, and on the small woman shoveling.

Each of the woman’s movements was like the second half of an echo: It seemed as if her gestures weren’t occurring now, but had been initiated some time ago. Faint, also fated. She emptied half a shovelful of snow onto a large bank, and then gathered more snow in her shovel.

Data Recovery

April 26, 2017 Dispatches

By KARTHIK PURUSHOTHAMAN

The US of A finally stamped its visa in my black pocketbook. Jazz fusion played in my ear, songs from an album fittingly titled This Meets That. I floated out of the document collection center in Nehru Place, New Delhi.

Firsthand Account

April 20, 2017 Fiction, Issue 13, Issue 13 Fiction

By BRUNA DANTAS LOBATO

The plan was to take the bus to my father’s farm, to see him in person for a change. My mother said, Your father is too busy for you, and you don’t know his wife. But I went anyway. I wanted to be able to say that my father was unavailable, firsthand account.

I packed only one large duffel bag, and my mother drove me to the bus station. She told me, Call me if you need anything. I said I’d call her every day.

I didn’t mind the nine-hour ride.

Nanjing Blues

April 17, 2017 Fiction

By CALEB COY

Nanjing, the furnace of the Yangtse, is a city so big it swallows. I can stroll through the streets and brush by anyone, but a weight presses on me like a singular, enveloping fog that never leaves. Men gather outside my apartment building and smoke in the afternoon. On some days a neighbor calls the Chengguan—the Urban Management Enforcement. They arrive in their white van and white hats and chase the smokers off. The smokers flee like carrion birds shooed away.

Living in the Past

April 14, 2017 Fiction, Issue 13, Issue 13 Fiction, Translation

From The Baghdad Eucharist

By SINAN ANTOON

Translated by MAIA TABET

1

“You’re just living in the past, Uncle!” Maha burst out as she ran from the living room after our argument. Luay, her husband, was upset and he called out after her, his face flushed.

“Hey, Maha, where are you going? Come back! Maha!” But she was already hurtling up the stairs that led to the second floor. He looked downcast as he apologized.

“Forgive her, Uncle. You know how much she loves and respects you.” In a voice speckled with shame, he added, “She’s a nervous wreck and can’t help herself.”

What Hanife Knows

April 12, 2017 Dispatches

By STEPHEN LYONS

One morning we hike a few miles to a nomad’s camp on an isolated island off Turkey’s southern coast. The hike is uphill, hot, and arduous. We pass the ruins of a Roman cistern and a dry-land tortoise headed downhill. After an hour the path levels out into a broad valley and we arrive. Only the woman is home. Her name is Hanife.

The Chemical Company

March 29, 2017 Dispatches

By MARIA TERRONE

Long Island City, Queens, New York, US

Even if the day was sunny, the air would seem to darken the longer we drove and the farther we bore into the industrial zone. The red brick factories built early in the 20^th century were still holding on then, producing staples, electrical circuits, distributor caps and who knows what else. Yet I recall no workers on the streets. There were no stores, no streets, no sidewalks, just ruts. It’s as if the factories were run by ghosts and the only evidence of life was an occasional wisp of smoke rising into gray haze.

Ask a Local: Mai Nardone, Bangkok, Thailand

February 23, 2017 Interviews

With MAI NARDONE

Your name: Mai Nardone

Current city or town: Bangkok

How long have you lived here: Fourteen years plus one this time around

Friday Reads: January 2017

January 20, 2017 Reviews

By SUNNA JUHN, ISABEL MEYERS, JULIA PIKE
For the transition to the new year, our staff picks mix old and new this month. These works of fiction explore themes of distance, change, ambition, and failure—and they all belong on your wish list.