Shadows Of The Forgotten Timepiece

He never uttered the word curse, but Dante had no doubt his life was marked for tragedy.

From his car accident at 16, to the string of outlandish catastrophes that followed him like ducklings throughout adulthood, including bouts of homelessness, addiction, and illness, both mental and physical in nature, Dante never caught a break, until finally he simply gave up all together.

Most of those who knew poor Dante blamed his lack of willpower. But they might have thought differently had they realized every misfortune occurred at exactly 3:13 PM. The same time he'd broken his grandfather's lucky watch.

The Swans On The Seine

“O ugly ducklings grown into beauty, are ye homesick too?”

Thus I, standing in the shadows of the House of Quasimodo, watching you glide upon these placid waters, O snow-winged sisters of my soul!

“Swans fly south for the winter” You, of whom I first read in the sun-baked plains of my homeland, a world soaked in the scents of masala and mangoes – in this city of eternal Autumn, you have made yourselves a second Spring.

You know not my home, O Daughters of Winter. I know not yours. Yet here the twain shall meet, Once Upon a September.

From Guest Contributor Hibah Shabkhez

Hibah is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

A Phalanx Of Ducklings

A phalanx of cars had stopped along the highway. It was raining and I didn't want to get out, but I finally grabbed my umbrella. The smiling faces indicated no one had been injured.

I pushed my way through the crowd. What had stopped traffic wasn't some kind of accident or road construction, but a family of ducklings swimming in a puddle that had formed inside a pothole. They were really the cutest thing you'd ever seen. There was room enough to drive past, but everyone was happy to spend the afternoon watching them. Some of us fed them breadcrumbs.