“The indigenous Taino were ill-prepared for the arrival of Spanish settlers. There were not war-like people; they were welcoming and trusting. Many were eradicated and most survivors simply cowered before the advanced weaponry of the Conquistadors. A few brave warriors dared to defy the occupation, however. Guarionex was a cacique, a trusted leader in his […]
Detective Amaral had never seen anything quite like it, even after fifteen years in the Providence Police Department. He knew that his recent promotion from patrol would come with consequences, and visceral displays of vivid violence put on full display by the sickest of minds, but this was next level. The victim had apparently been […]
The man had been sitting in the coffee shop in the corner booth for hours. He had his collar up and slouched into his tan oversized coat, accepting a top off anytime the waitress came to check on him. He watched the window and the door anxiously, as if he were waiting for someone. But […]
And I to clasp her waist wandered all the earth, with wars and mountains, with sands and thorns. – Pablo Neruda Providence, Rhode Island greeted Alexis with grayness on a rain-soaked Tuesday in fall. He arrived via Peter Pan bus from New York, and disembarked at Kennedy Plaza. He had waited twenty years for this […]
It was an A-line dress, the same shade of yellow as a taxicab with no pattern or print. It was cinched at the waist, with spaghetti straps, pleated along the bottom and reached down to the knees, more or less. The vintage clothing and antiques store on the city’s ever-evolving, artsy West End was proud […]
Darkness descended on the denizens of Providence one brutally hot evening in mid-July for approximately seventy-two minutes during a city-wide blackout. While some of it may have spilled over into the neighboring towns of Cranston and Pawtucket, it remained tightly within city limits, affecting every neighborhood, side street and main thoroughfare. Experts would later attribute […]
Jenny Wood, the narrator of “Remember Me, Remember Me,” is a ghost who died at age three and developed the ability to absorb the memories of other ghosts, gathering into herself interior worlds she would never have otherwise encountered. At one point in my afterlife I roamed from one Little Free Library to another. Many […]
Growing up, I was a boy. At least, that’s what they told me. Life was presented in binary code. Parents and teachers weren’t like us. “No, they’re adults! Y’all’re children. Boys are boys and girls are girls.” — whatever that means. “But there is a difference! Boys wear blue and girls wear pink. Boys are […]
Naomi sought a bruja to cast a spell; her name was Flor and she was a neighborhood witch who served the locals with Santeria. Naomi was there for a standard service, on behalf of jilted lovers everywhere. She wanted her ex to remember her, forever. He had broken up with her abruptly just two months […]
Oscar and Marcus were born to be rivals, it seemed, from the age of four when they shared the same babysitter. It started with a coveted crayon, color green, and it continued into the drab halls of Gilbert Stuart Middle School. It didn’t help matters that they were practically neighbors, coming of age on the […]