Category - Fiction

Adam Ells Fiction Literature

The Other Tenant

In January I moved into a basement suite in Burnaby. The windows looked out into holes in the ground that were covered by planter boxes along the east wall and a newly built deck along the back. No one lived in the house above, but every weekend at 5 AM the gardener would start up a weed wacker...

Fiction Literature S.L.W.

Growing Bodies

I. SUMMER My mother was a gardener. She saw something in nature—in dirt and bugs and effervescent flies—that I never have. Under light skies and bright weather, she’d kneel for hours in our mediocre garden, weeding and watering or whatever it is that gardeners do. I am now doing the same in...

Fiction Literature Meg Max

Garbage Day

I jump out from under the covers, stumbling down the hallway to Curtis’s nursery. The deep cream carpet muffles my steps, soft against my bare feet. The cool knob of the door startles me fully awake as I turn it. The hinges creak open. The room is dark. No nightlight. The screams that woke me up...

Fiction Literature Siavash Saadlou

Mi Padre

There was a time when Jubin’s dad used to run a reputable coffee store at the heart of Tehran’s bazaar. His cheques never bounced. His customers always came back for more. His name Farhad—meaning helper—had become synonymous with decency among his colleagues. They had even nicknamed him...

Fiction Literature Shaelin Bishop

Zugzwang

The woman smoking meth across from the bodega looks like your sister, so you offer her a pack of cigarettes and forty-three dollars if she’ll pretend to be her for one night. You could afford to pay more, but this is all you have in cash and she takes it. Up close, she looks less like Reed: acne...

Fiction Literature T. Liem

Over Two Decades of Dedicated Maintenance

This one Sunday night I stood in my bathroom with the door open while Cass talked me through her most recent horrible week. Cass was tall, blonde, thin. Light on light on light. Except, she kept her long hair dyed bright colours and wore baggy clothes with a lot of patterns. This all had the effect...