Mayela walked out of the supermarket holding a bar of chocolate, far too big for one person. She opened it carefully, unsure whether she was allowed to… or whether she was dreaming. She sat down on the pavement and ate it alone, slowly. It wasn’t hunger. It was a pause. The first moment in a…
Some believe that millions and millions of years ago, cats came to Earth driven by curiosity. A few stayed forever, unable to resist the endless mysteries they found here. Others eventually returned to their own worlds, eager to discover what had happened in their absence. The line of communication between both planets, however, was never…
It was April 1st, 2000. The world had survived Y2K, and so had I. At twelve years old, I was about to enter a jungle where I would spend six of the most memorable years of my life. I don’t remember my first day at school particularly well, but I do remember enjoying the freedom….
My first trip to the Middle East introduced me to new ways of living and people whose stories were so surreal that I eventually filed them under magical realism. One day I accidentally sat in the women’s section of a bus and spent ten uncomfortable minutes wondering why every woman dressed in black seemed personally…
By the age of fifteen, Juan had already learned an important lesson about school. Sometimes the only way to stop a bully is to punch him in the nose. It wasn’t a lesson he had wanted to learn. A year earlier, a classmate had decided that Juan’s brand-new aviator sunglasses would make anexcellent target. The…
The vibration of Felipe’s phone finally woke him up. It was three in the morning. A month earlier, Felipe had arrived from Venezuela. Between the stress of leaving his country andthe uncertainty of starting over, sleep had become a luxury. Luckily, he had found work almostimmediately through the cousin of Ana, his first school girlfriend….
A cat arrived in my life one day. He was tiny, clumsy and had enormous eyes. White as a cloud and, according to his parents pedigree, destined to become extremely fluffy. I had never had a cat before. The whole situation intrigued me. Like a proud parent, I introduced him to every corner of his new…