The commissioner needed Mercy to clean up another one of his messes; that much was clear just from looking at him. He was stiff, unsmiling, gray-faced. Tall and wide as a football player, he had to tiptoe through the dim consultation room crammed with bead-covered gourds, rusty old railroad spikes, black dolls in gingham dresses, cast-iron pots filled with butterscotch candies and penny offerings to the gods. He knocked into the life-size statue of Santa Barbara, her golden sword clattering in her plaster fist. Then he knocked into the life-size San Lazaro, the purple velvet cape that was draped over the saint’s leprous chest slipping to reveal a bony shoulder...
"Reconnecting" by Iqbal Pittalwala
Father wanted me to follow Snigdha to the States but my Bachelor of Arts degree didn’t get me far (even for the boutique job Father had to pull some strings). In any case, I insisted on staying with him in Mumbai. It frustrates me that so many of our talented youth want to leave this wonderful land for the West, Snigdha being no exception. Since we were little she has been saying that if women wanted to be anywhere important in life, they’d have to leave India for the West. “Vasu, it’s only in the West that life, the way it was meant to be lived, is even possible,” she would say, much to my annoyance. “For women, the opportunities there—Oh! We can only dream of them in India.”
"Now a Major Motion Picture" by Simon Collins
Every generation misses out on something, and for my parents it was the Second World War. For much of my childhood, though, I had the impression that my mother had been very much involved. When my sister complained about sharing a bedroom with me, my mother would describe the inside of an Anderson shelter. If we left vegetables uneaten on our plates, she would talk about life without bananas. We didn’t question her authority on such matters at the time. But later I found out that she’d been seven years old when the war began, and that neither she nor my father were greatly inconvenienced by it. Neither starved, neither was evacuated to some lonely Yorkshire village, neither lost a parent or close relative. My father remarked on this good fortune more than once, but I think my mother rather resented it. I think she envied those who’d had more direct experience of and involvement in the great formative event of her lifetime...
"Sierra" by Winona Leon
Someone stole his roadside memorial yesterday. It’s been all over the news. No one can stop talking about it. The one near the old oak off I-10. It was nothing special, though. A haphazard wooden cross, scattered flowers, and a laminated poster with his name italicized in green sans serif that had been printed at the library for eleven dollars. We Will Always Love You, Andrew! Kind of cheesy, if you want the truth. But someone stole it, and the town’s been skittish ever since...