My short story “Miracle Boy” won the Fiction Vortex Reader’s Choice Poll for April 2014. Thanks so much to everyone who voted.

Reader’s Choice Winner announcement

Read “Miracle Boy”:

I sat behind him the day he grew wings. I always seemed to be behind him — in class, in line during morning prayer — maybe that’s why I noticed him in the first place, before the wings, before everyone else did.

He was in my third grade class. Red sand always coated his legs, garish against his blue-black skin. He took off his shoes to play in the courtyard at recess, and kicked up the sand where grass refused to grow under the tropical Sri Lankan sun. His friends played cricket. They ran and yelled and boasted under the watchful eyes of the girls who stood by the swings. But he just kicked and kicked at the sand, watching the dusty clouds his feet made.

My body wasn’t strong enough to play outside at recess, so I sat at the classroom window and watched his feet, the way the sand slowly stained their bright, pink undersides.

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