The woman is still wiping blood off her face when a throng of villagers envelops her. You can no longer reach her amid the swarm that surrounds her.

I do not fear strangers. Everyone in the world exists to protect me from disaster I can sense but not perceive.

“Basmah” means “smile” in Arabic. That’s what my ex-wife named our daughter; she said that maybe she could teach me how to smile. Our marriage lasted for eight years. I tried my best.

We assume that we would die inside of any black hole but what if we sometimes survive and what would we find there in the survival abyss

Sound travels differently in a barrio. Here, there are no quiet hours, no inconvenience; without noise, the air stifles.

Oh, that’s where my parents used to—Grandma cuts off her sentence, spins around and starts again, climbing the stairs towards us. “That’s where my parents put me during storms.”