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Day Trip

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction, Translation

The village had many corners, of which the far western side, leading to the bus terminal, was the bleakest. Om Saber sat on the clean plastic bench installed by the village’s youth committee and waited for the first microbus to take her to the city. With an anxious movement, she reached into her bra to check on the piece of paper she had placed there. Abu Hosny, the old taxi driver, had written down for her all the instructions that she needed to get to her destination: Shatta Prison, where the sweetest part of her now resided, which made distance and time nothing but an illusion. A large cat rubbed its dewy fur on the hem of her black dress. Om Saber smiled and tried to stay still so as not to disturb the cat. She smiled again when she found the paper in its fold.

Spin

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction

By CHERYL COLLINS ISAAC

The mind works like a solar system, an interplanetary medium to keep things running smoothly. Moses speaks in a memorized whisper, his voice soft, like the warm towel he places on her forehead.

Hawa closes her eyes, drifts with the sensation of rocks pounding palm nuts open, small fingers reaching inside for kernels. They are teenagers again, and he is her caring boyfriend who brings her palm kernels for snacks when she lies sick with malaria. She heals and they celebrate with dance: the small of her back supported by his palms as she melts into a ballet fondu. They dance under the palm tree, pretend they are ballet partners at school, performers onstage. If only things were that simple again.

George Rapp 4th of July

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Poetry

By G. C. WALDREP

Bids slowly wish.
With camellias.
With rose hips bee
balm with honey.

The Marching Bands of Mahatma Gandhi Road

May 2, 2022 Essays, Issue 23, Issue 23 Essays

By LIESL SCHWABE

“Name and fame,” Mohammad Sabir said in English, shouting over the noise of the traffic. Manager and occasional trumpet player for one of dozens of marching bands for hire in Kolkata, India, he was describing the glamor that once compelled families across the city to hire bands like his.

Fifty-year-old Master Sabir, as bandleaders are known, was sitting behind his desk in a pink, threadbare shirt. A goat was tied to the electricity box out front, barefoot children raced past, and, nearby, bidi makers sat chopping dried tobacco by hand. According to my phone, it was only 103 degrees, but the reported “feels like” had hovered between 118 and 125 for days, and it was sometimes hard to breathe. This was in May of 2019, halfway through Ramadan and an hour before iftar; Sabir had not eaten or taken a drink of water all day.

The Stranger

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction, Translation

By ABEER KHSHIBOON

Translated by NASHWA GOWANLOCK

Farah was struggling to keep her balance in the heaving crowd near the locked gate. Despite how long she would have to wait to get into the hall at Amman University—where she’d already been standing for more than an hour—she remained both calm and cheerful. She was even humming a song—the last one she’d listened to on the way from the border crossing to a modest hotel in the Jordanian capital where she was sharing a room with the university friend joining her for the Fairouz concert.

Public Fishing Dock

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Poetry, Uncategorized

By RALPH BURNS

The Common Magazine · “Public Fishing Dock” by Ralph Burns

We had to leave because someone saw my
father set his bottle down. Because
of something in us we leaned into one another

Breakfast of Champions

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Poetry

By TINA CANE

I woke up in a panic this morning thinking what if my love language

is granola? I found a quiz online but was too chicken to take it having had

Russian bots once read my face and place me alongside a woman holding a mango

or some bullshit in Gaugin
nothing exotic for me today

To My IUD

May 2, 2022 Issue 23, Issue 23 Poetry, Podcasts & Audio, Poetry

By MADELEINE MORI

The Common Magazine · “To My IUD” by Madeleine Mori

I’m halfway home to Bed-Stuy
when I feel the cervical cramp.
I was told they’d be getting worse

The Birthday

May 2, 2022 Fiction, Issue 23, Issue 23 Fiction

By EIDER RODRÍGUEZ

Translated by JULIA SANCHES

At the end-of-year meeting, the teacher had informed me that Izadi needed to take up a sport, “discover the strength she had inside her,” “meet people,” “socialize,” “work on her independence.” The teacher said these things and other things, just as he did at the end of every school year. I pretended to be surprised, but I knew all of that already. Usually, I was on top of her, and I figured that was a good thing, or maybe I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure. In any case, Izadi was special, and that was the price to pay for raising her with principles. I wanted to enjoy her company as much as possible—after all, I’d wanted to have her so badly. Before Izadi, I’d never taken care of anyone, at least not for such a long period of time, and it was more complicated than I’d thought it would be, much more complicated than just loving someone. Weekends, holidays, every single day… I took care of everything as if it were a lesson plan. I was tired; maybe that was why our relationship had deteriorated. So that summer I signed Izadi up for kayaking lessons even though she didn’t want them.