The hospital bed cradles my body like some pharaoh on display at The Honolulu Academy of Arts. My fingers tremble as I adjust midnight-blue candles. On an aluminum tray that’s bent where Cousin Kevin leaned on it, The Book of Tar lays above my heart, oozing black tendrils. Am I ready?Fuck, is anyone ever “ready”…
Dalisay squeezed through the cluster of banyan trees the dwendehad told her to keep an eye out for. Then she grimaced. Past the curtains of their impenetrable vines, stood the severed waist of a woman. The manananggal must still be on the prowl. Dalisay’s mother used to terrorize her nights with tales about them. About…
His polished shield was strapped to his left arm, leaving his hand free to hold the lantern. His right hand gripped the sword, although Honorius doubted he would use it. What had once been a palace was now ruins. Vines climbed the pillars and moss grew upon the damp ground. Rain dripped from holes in…
Gentle rain fell the day I visited the ocean for the first time. The wind turbines in the distance were barely visible through the thin, silver sheets that fell from the sky. They stood like sentinels, clad in gleaming white armor against the looming horizon, arms outstretched as if to hold off a coming storm….
Not again. On the day of the ceremony. Talk about bad timing. I stare at the barrier floating in front of me, willing it to go away. It stubbornly remains. It materialized when I got tangled trying to put on my formal armor. It always happens when I get angry or nervous, losing control in…
In the time it takes for Marjorie to walk back from the open bar, she has downed her glass of wine. “We’ve done the introductions and niceties,” she says. “Should we just get to the part everyone expects from the sad singles table?” Without waiting for an answer, she tugs on her dress to reveal…
Eli shudders as the forest canopy devours the moonlight. Though the early-summer warmth abandoned him at forest’s edge, the young boy clutches his parcel and presses forward, the flickering lantern’s glow dancing upon the trees with gleeful menace. With each step a silence grows, as if the trees still to watch. “Deep in the wood…
The villagers would do anything to see rain again, even if it meant wounding a god. They’d tried begging their sky deity to end the drought, but his clouds had simply hung above, as idle and gray as the nearby mountain. Their next prayer was less reverent. Gathered in a dead yellow field, the villagers…
A man stood on the street corner, preaching about the end of the world. Most people ignored him. Some because they couldn’t hear him, others because they’d heard it all before. To me, it sounded more like wishful thinking than anything else. I was in too much of a hurry to listen. I needed to…
I keep my parents in the bottom drawer of the commode, next to the pump. Every Sunday, just after I finish preparing the pizza, I take them out and bring them into the living room. Fully inflated, sitting at the table, they look endearing. Before we start eating, I load the last updated copy of…
