A New Kind of Literary Pulse

The old girl living in Room Number 12, Farmanieh Nursing Home in Tehran has a funny way of watching her television. She sets up a chair in front of the lone window in her room, as if to look out at ... [+]

Ting
She smiled as the sun warmed her face. Her sleeves. Her Arms.
As the crystalline tinkle of the nearby stream reached her ears.
As a child, just out of sight, laughed in ... [+]

“It’s snowing outside,” Lionel lunged for the windowsill, gripping the cold plastic with the eagerness of a child. There he stayed, equally enthralled and at ease, only glancing away to look ... [+]

The waves ripple back as I stare into the glimmer of the moon light reflecting onto the ocean. I realize that soon the sun will rise and I’d have to start getting things ready for the day. I take a ... [+]

The woman in front of me sits with her legs crossed, one meticulously manicured clear-coat-polished hand holding a notebook steady on her knee. It contains far too many pieces of information about ... [+]

Once upon a time, a young brunette sat outside the nearly empty train station in Brockingway. She pulled her purple shawl tighter around her shoulders. The snow that had began to come down stuck to ... [+]

The rusted chains creaked softly, their music carried by a soft wind that rustled the leaves of nearby trees. The leather seat pressed uncomfortably against me as my gaze stayed fixed on the colorful ... [+]

Ernest cracked two eggs into the black frying pan with a sizzle. The fumes of which wafted up to him in wisps of vapor that warmed his stubbled chin. Lovingly, he picked up the bottle of pepper next ... [+]

You have a few seconds when you step outside in the winter before the cold soaks into your skin. As a kid I was challenged by my older cousins to abandon the steaming hot tub sanctuary at my aunt’s ... [+]

I was the ruler of my own heart, a lover of everything life threw at me, and a carrier of grief, a messenger of death. I was once all these things in my past lives; I would like to think I still ... [+]

Hours have passed. I still haven’t reached the ground. The creaking of these ancient, rusted scaffolds echoes in the endless expanse, pressing in on me as I climb ever downward. The haunted light ... [+]

Shimmering sheets of ice streaked the land for as far as any eye could hope to see. That’s all there would ever be. The sun scarcely penetrated the thick clouds of fog that rolled endlessly on what ... [+]

The detective leaned up against the cold brick of the alleyway, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. In the distance, he could hear the firetrucks wail as they sped through streets still slick ... [+]

“It’s a shame he left, Darling. It really is.”
Seraphina tore away a layer of paper mache from the elephant sculpture. She sat under a hanging spotlight. The sculpture lay on a white ... [+]

A warm breeze blew past the two women sitting at the metal table, and Alice tilted her head back, closing her eyes against the sun and smiling. “Have you been here before?” she asked Emma, raising ... [+]

The reporter knew the first rule of journalism: never let go of the mic. He learned the sacred rule while watching a peer concede her interview to a drunkard with a good grip. Still, he threw over the ... [+]

Julia walked into The Paper Hound Bookshop. Julia loved books and every Saturday would spend the day discovering a new bookstore. She instantly fell in love with the store, she admired the floor to ... [+]

The look in the mother’s eyes turned from desperation to gratitude as I leaned over the back of my pew, offering to take the eighteen-month-old. He almost leapt to me, ready to get away from the ... [+]