Speakeasy Kaleb Mantela __________ Half past nine, the sun has already set on the gridded streets of downtown San Diego. The ASABakery is nestled within one of those five over one gentrification style complexes. On the othercorner, a derelict parking lot, and the tents of a few drug addicts. Adjacent…
Read MoreFlowers from a Stranger Leslie Lisbona __________ Decades before my father died, I would drive my Honda Civic and cry over his future death. This happened only on routes I knew by heart. Terrible scenarios would push aside other thoughts, all with the same tragic ending. Before I realized what…
Read MoreOtherWorlds, September ’26 Editor: Vallie Lynn Watson Managing Editor: Tyler Campbell Associate Editor: Dusti RW Levy and Stephanie Smith Assistant Editors: Madeline Ricard, Chelsey Wright, Joel Lema, and Kathrine Winter Interns: Nick LaRocca Basak Devrim Andreutti, “Dreaming,” oil on wood Letter from the Editor by Vallie Lynn Watson Letter from…
Read MoreVignettes: A Literary Photo Album, July ’26 Editor: Vallie Lynn Watson Guest/Outgoing Managing Editor: Taryn White Incoming Managing Editor: Tyler Campbell Vishaal Pathak, “That Afternoon in Daman,” photograph Letter from the Editor by Vallie Lynn Watson Letter from the Guest Editor by Taryn White Fiction “Olives” by Lori Sambol Brody…
Read MoreEggs Melissa Zamora __________ Fluorescents hum. The dairy case throws damp cold from its open mouth. It settles in the hollow under her throat. List in hand, columns penciled in her handwriting, every category checked but this one. Same categories. Different week. She is at the eggs. Large is easy.…
Read MoreAll Summer Claudia Smith __________ End of May Either the postcard-bright sting of chlorine in an emptied pool, scrubbed after the bodies were found, or the sour-sweet algae of early summer at a motel with window units. Or could be the mosquitoes through the cracked window with no screen, or…
Read MoreMusic Camp, 1978 Marybeth Rua-Larsen __________ Behind the concert hall, after dusk, the moon oozed through an elm’s branches like an egg yolk, not solid, not liquid, quivering. His arms around my waist, then feathered to my backside as he pulled me in. Let’s dance, he said, to no music…
Read MoreHidden Inside Bob Rehm __________ The bullets were bright and shiny in my 8-year-old hand. And they were heavy, all boxed up in neat rows. I show them with pride to my new friend from down the block. Bullets meant my Dad has a gun. And guns were cool. My…
Read MoreThe Feast Joani Reese __________ Our train rolls south from Bridgeport past the blue noses in Fairfield and Westport — the mistake that is Stamford. Peeping into Greenwich, Manhattan’s ermine-lined bedroom, we ride the express train into Grand Central for the Feast of San Gennaro. Shawl-clad grandmothers waddle down Spring…
Read MorePremeditation Niles Reddick __________ We became friends on the yearbook staff in junior high school. In the darkroom, we hid a pack of cigarettes and a pint of vodka by removing a ceiling tile. We smoked and mixed vodka in Sprite while we developed pictures of students and teachers in…
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