by Dulce Maria Gray
You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won’t come undone
Here, in Turkey, the “cradle of civilizations” that nursed 13 successive societies spanning 10,000 years; here, far from everything that is familiar to me, where I am anonymous; here, in the midst of Cappadocian ruins [...]

by Diana Cohen
Pepe and his pottery yard were both ramshackle and to the casual passerby may have looked dilapidated, even unpleasantly cobwebby. All that is true I suppose, but the eyes that turned away after only a superficial glance would have missed a small, self-contained world, teeming with life and rich with history. The hub [...]

by Jann Huizenga
It’s raining, and the power is out. I strain in the dim light to take it all in: shattered spectacles; sour linens; jewelry black with age; wool stockings; fusty hope chests and sculpted cradles; mountains of rusty pistols for Albanian blood vengeance.
The shops in Kruja’s old Ottoman bazaar have the bad breath [...]

by Bonnie Smetts
I tiptoed up the gray-carpeted stairs of the Gucci store in Rome. A single sweater folded with precision lay on a counter and another three lay perfectly forbidden on a shelf below. The only other shoppers were a Japanese teenager with no apparent budget and a model who I’d seen leave her boyfriend [...]

by Leah M. Cano
I was seventeen and it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. It had been a public display of affection for all to see. He had jumped up on the side of the bus as the driver was revving his engine, hoisting himself up toward the open window [...]

by Robert Robeson
(Nearly four decades have come and gone, yet one moment in time continues to play back through my mind at regular intervals. It’s like the music of a beloved love song from one’s early dating years. Unique. Inspiring. Unforgettable.)
May 9, 1970. Another oppressively hot and humid Asian afternoon was drawing to a close [...]

by Jann Huizenga
Signora, reads the message in Italian, we request your presence at Police Headquarters for fingerprinting on February 11. This is great news: I applied for a work permit six months ago, and Roman authorities are finally getting around to making me legal. My eyes skid to a stop at the appointment time. 9:12??? [...]

by Eileeen Cunniffe
Visions of French food danced through my mind, prompted no doubt by my growling stomach, as the train pulled into Chartres. We were stopping there to rendezvous with the other half of our six-person traveling party and to move our body clocks ahead by six hours. The next day we would begin the [...]

by Kira Coonley
The bow of the boat disappeared as it dove into the face of the ocean swell sending salt spray across the foredeck, hitting the isen glass that surrounded the cockpit, and expelling its glory in our wake. Water sloshed down the gunnels on both sides and flooded the deck as she pitched from [...]

by Gwen Hopkins
The man in orange wasn’t the marabout.
I’d been staring at him, barely breathing, as he sat calmly and majestically with his legs folded underneath his boubou. My professor explained who he really was, some assistant, and I took a big breath. The cool air shocked my lungs and I tried to exhale slowly [...]