What people meant by hardest was how cold. What I meant about worst was how alone. Coldest in at least over a hundred, you’d hear over and over. And it was cold, and it was dark, and the winds never stopped from the season we used to call fall clear through to now, what before was called summer.

Chandu measured her day not by hours but by the clock of her bladder, by how much time elapsed between trips to the toilet. Thirty minutes, twenty minutes, thirty-five, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen. A strong, dark stream the first few times, after she woke late in the morning, her small room brimming...

I could tell it was her, even from afar: the self-serviced closecropped hair, her zany leggings, and the neon Nike Flight windbreaker she always wore, no matter the season. And since Raven had no business being on campus, I gave it all a second look, knowing something was either off or about to...

Men can pee while sitting on the toilet. This is one of the things Anne learned while caring for her father, who had Alzheimer’s. “I love you more than I know,” he told her. “Let me take this opportunity to wish you Happy Visit,” he said. “We’ve had a little back-set here at the office. A little up...

July and August used to be the best month because that is when school would be out for the summer. Is real funny how they call it summer when Guyana is summer all year round, eh? But back then them thing didn’t matter. All the children would rest up on the weekend after school close and by Monday...

I go down to my hut. I go down every day. I go in the afternoon. I go when the afternoon meets the early evening. I go alone. I go alone to be alone. I go down to my hut to be alone in my hut with no one. The stretch of garden is long, it narrows the closer I come to its boundary, and as I walk...