by Kelley Calvert
In a taxi speeding wildly into tar-black night, the car’s headlights met the blindness of dust stirred and scattered. The famous wind known as the Harmattan was blowing angrily over the Sahel of Niger, carrying its fury south and leaving a veil of dust over the desert’s ever-expanding domain.
Earlier, as I had […]

By Marianne Rogoff
The lights have come on, the night is falling, life changes its face.
One way or another I have to keep on living.
My soul burns like a hand, physically.
I’m on the road of all men and they bump against me.
~ Fernando Pessoa
***
My hotel is as I pictured it, simple with all the comforts: nice […]

By Juliette de Campos
In a final act of desperation I went to the Guatemalan countryside to consult a witchdoctor. It’s my habit during times of turmoil to go straight to the source. Forget the psychotherapist offering opportunities to find the answers within. I prefer to skip over trial and error and get my empiricism the […]

by Jann Huizenga
The best thing about my short-term rental in Ragusa, Sicily is that it comes with a cleaning woman. Lucia arrives every Monday morning sporting a strand of pearls, heels, and a pencil skirt. She doesn’t shed any of them, neither while mopping the stone floors nor while scouring the bidet. I work at […]

by Nancy Penrose
I am a traveler in search of flamenco. In a nightclub in a cave in Granada, I sip Cruzcampo beer and watch and wait for the music to begin. Stools scrape, tables shift, and that narrow room grows crowded. Fellow tourists. British accents. A small stage; a backdrop of wrinkled cloth. In […]