Category Archives: Tiny stories
What is dance?
Venezuela. The day Florcita understood what dance was, she was waiting for a Communist Party meeting to start. Two comrades arrived in their car. They were in their eighties, and had been active for decades, including when the party was underground and repressed. The woman had had a stroke a year ago, and with help … Continue reading
Tiny story: things that are in proportion
Too much water
I’m sleeping, surrounded by pillows and a warm doona. It feels like soft flowing hills. Outside, there are storms. They gather around the city like hungry seagulls. Greedy rumbles and too much water. Overflowing concrete barrios and broken stone roads and rubbish pile-ups by drains and nearby a town that will slide down the hill … Continue reading
The balloon seller
Her mass of taut and floating balloons seems heavy. The Puebla street is five layers of flaking paint visible on the lamp post. It’s anxious crowds shopping slowly between the two stories of old buildings and churches and rubbish bins spilling over with taco and cemita wrapping. Among the balloon sellers and crowds you don’t … Continue reading
What the world does with its children
The accidental rich white man
In 1872, the president of Ecuador ordered that Manuela Leon be shot, after her leading role in an indigenous rebellion against forced labour. Her troops had been victorious, and they say she had managed to kill the lieutenant Miguel Vallejo. In the president’s decree, he called her Manuel. And just like that, he erased the … Continue reading
The rage doctor
The way it all ended…
What seas say to each other …
The advantages of mass hunger..
Underneath the concrete footpath
Where the bodies of man-made deaths go… Continue reading
