Vicky's Secret

by Mary Saracino

I undid the rest of my shift dress and shimmied the cloth off my body, dropping the cloth in pools around my ankles. There I presided, enthroned in my cotton panties and my lacy red push up, my sagging stomach proclaiming its right to live and breath in the presence of that bus stop lingerie model's more nubile flesh. I swear I felt a tiara settle on my graying head.
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Fat Hair

by Monica Kilian

I had never thought about hair being fat or skinny. But since meeting Nita, I divided girls into those who had fat hair and those who didn't. According to Nita, all the Indian girls she knew had glossy, fat braids that hung down their backs like overfed snakes, swinging lazily from side to side as they walked. Nita's hair didn't swing: it bounced, no matter how carefully she moved. She tried weighing it down with heavy barrettes, but they just stretched out the braid and made it look even thinner.

"Argh!" she complained, pulling off the barrettes, "With hair like this, I'll never get a husband."
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The Untold Story

by Mercy Adhiambo

"Do you know what that would mean…? The ancestors would not forgive us. You cannot sacrifice the whole village for your own sake. You should have known better and not gone to the granary at night!" screamed the old woman.
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Joan

by Julia Gordon Bramer

What I should have said then, Joan, what I didn't say (for reasons I don't know-isn't it strange how little we understand ourselves?), what I should have said, was that you've shaped me, Joan. I should have told you how much you meant to me.

I should have told you that I loved you.
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