Fiction | Page 26 | The Common

Little Wonder

October 3, 2018 Fiction

Sunlight and Shadows

The sunlight filtered through the window of our cafe. Golden sweet, it wove around the trees, the garden, over the stage, through the window and onto the railroad tie floor. I didn’t mind sweeping, because I got to dip my feet in it.

There was music on, and in the late spring air, it sounded perfect. Gram Parson’s Brass Buttons. Like it was made for right there right then, even though we all knew it was made a long time ago, back when parents were young and happy and we were only a microscopic part of them.

Dogs

September 25, 2018 Fiction

By KELSEY LEACH

I walk along the sidewalk, my little dog tugging at her leash. The snow has begun to melt; water gathers in puddles and darkens the leather of my boots. The sun breaks over the roofs of houses across the street and the wet tree branches gleam. A sun too hot for January, but beautiful. The neighborhood is quiet and empty. I sniff the air.

An Untouched House

August 14, 2018 Fiction, Translation

Excerpt from the novel by W. F. HERMANS
Translated from the Dutch by DAVID COLMER

I went out the back door, across the marble terrace and down into the garden, as I had done so many times before. I looked up at the two windows I had calculated as belonging to the locked room. There was nothing to see. As always, they were covered with blackout paper. Nothing had changed. Walking back and forth, I studied all of the protrusions on the back wall: window frames, downpipes. I couldn’t see any way of climbing up without a ladder. It wasn’t even possible to reach them from the window of another room.

Reading Willow

July 31, 2018 Fiction

By ARTHUR KLEPCHUKOV

My wife pointed out the willow tree on move-in day. The branches draped over a hill as round as my wife’s belly at seven months. We’d traded a West Coast high-rise for an East Coast village where the only thing to wake our baby would be other babies. We came to the city in our youth. And we left for our youth.

A Man I Don’t Know

April 30, 2018 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 15, Issue 15 Fiction, Translation

By ELIAS FARKOUH

Translated by MAIA TABET

As soon as he elbowed me in the ribs, whipping my averted face toward the pitch-black corner, I thought I heard him saying, “Frightened, eh?”

Truly, I was frightened.

The Slaves

April 30, 2018 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 15, Issue 15 Fiction, Translation

By GHALIB HALASA
Translated by THORAYA EL-RAYYES

At the borderland between the desert and the plains, Emirate of Transjordan, early twentieth century

Two men sat near the round threshing floor in the western fields. Each with his rifle on his lap. “What a goddamn year,” Tafish said. He had a skull-like face. Small, sunken, deep-set eyes. Emaciated cheeks with protruding cheekbones. A broad forehead with dark blue veins at the sides. Skin like an aged tortoise. His hair and lower jaw were hidden behind a white keffiyeh, held in place by a black fleece cord around his head. His frame was tall, straight, lithe. He rubbed his nose with his hand, letting a low whistle out of his nostrils. By the time he lowered his hand, a pensive expression of disgust had formed on his face. Staring straight ahead, he spoke, as if to himself: “What a goddamn year.”

The Bus

April 30, 2018 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 15, Issue 15 Fiction, Translation

By MAHMOUD AL-RIMAWI

Translated by ELISABETH JAQUETTE

Between France and Marrakech is a route upon which travels a single bus from Paris. The bus reaches its destination safely, as one might hope and expect. Then the passengers who so desire transfer to another bus, which takes them by an established road to Agadir.

From Husband Number Four

April 30, 2018 Fiction, Issue 15, Issue 15 Fiction, Translation

By RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA
Translated by NATHANIEL GALLANT

I have enclosed this letter in another sent to Mr. Lama Chobuden¹ of Darjeeling, India, and expect by now it has been forwarded along from him to Japan. While I am not without my concerns as to whether or not you will indeed receive the letter, if by some chance it were not to make the passage, I am given solace only by the fact that you are not in any particular anticipation of a letter. That being said, if you are to receive this letter, I am certain that you will find yourself taking some amusement in my fate. First, I am living in Tibet. Second, I have become a Chinese person. Third, I share a wife with three other husbands.

Fascinations

April 30, 2018 Fiction, Issue 15, Issue 15 Fiction

By PHILIP BRUNST

1999

My mother comes to visit me every few weeks. There’s nothing unusual about that, except she lives in a nursing home she isn’t supposed to leave. She wraps what used to be my father’s long winter coat over her shoulders, pays one of the nurses to sneak her out, and climbs into the back seat of an idling car that waits outside.

Operating Manual

April 30, 2018 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 15, Issue 15 Fiction, Translation

By Fairooz Tamimi

Translated by Thoraya El-Rayyes

How to make a cup of hot chocolate

Stand in front of the window of your kitchen refuge and prepare the following ingredients:

A welcoming, empty green glass.
A bottle of cold, fresh milk.
An orange and brown tin of Cadbury’s Cocoa.
The two large tablespoons locked in an embrace in the drawer (possibly because of your awful dishwashing skills), which have triggered your loneliness. Use them as they are; do not expend any emotion separating them.

All posts tagged: Fiction

Little Wonder

Dogs

An Untouched House

Reading Willow

A Man I Don’t Know

The Slaves

The Bus

From Husband Number Four

Fascinations

Operating Manual

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